FTW96LA316 · Kraft AIR MASTER
Kraft AIR MASTER · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From West Houston Airport (IWS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA316
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Kraft AIR MASTER
- Aircraft type
- Kraft AIR MASTER
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N222Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Houston Airport (IWS), Houston, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel starvation; Wire, transmission
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to an FAA inspector, witnesses reported the airplane was experiencing 'engine problems.' During an emergency landing, the airplane struck power lines and a fence. The fuel system of the accident airplane was configured so that the engine fed only from the center fuel tank. The right and left wing fuel tanks store fuel until the pilot transfers it into the center tank. Both the right and left fuel tanks have a transfer pump. To transfer fuel, the pilot turns on the transfer pump, and opens the fuel valve to allow fuel to flow from the left or/and right tank to the center tank. Once the fuel is in the center tank, the valve is closed and the pumps turned off. If the valve is left opened, the pumps must be left running to prevent the fuel from draining back into the wing tanks. During an on-scene investigation, the switches for both of the transfer pumps were found in the 'on' position; however, the fuel valve was found in the closed position. The fuel quantity gauges indicated the center tank was empty, the left wing tank was 3/4 full, and the right wing tank was 1/2 full.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper positioning of the fuel tank selector, which resulted in fuel starvation, loss of engine power, and a forced landing. The lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA316
- Event ID
- 20001208X06237
- Case number
- FTW96LA316
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 60b50f0e2e0eed2bbe6cba0251c048f0cab85267eeb965f33ff4bb5cacabc3fe; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:15:34.295Z.