SEA96LA154 · Colonial C-1
Colonial C-1 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Gallup Municipal Airport (GUP) to Cal Black Memorial Airport (U96)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA154
- 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
- 0 · 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
Colonial C-1
- Aircraft type
- Colonial C-1
- 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
- N248B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gallup Municipal Airport (GUP), Gallup, NMTo Cal Black Memorial Airport (U96), UT
- 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
- Approach
- 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 exhaustion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that about 1,000 feet above ground level and with the airport in sight, the engine suddenly quit. He was unable to restart the engine, and a forced landing was made in an open area. The airplane belly landed, bounced, and became airborne, then it rolled to the left and touched down again inverted. The pilot stated that after the accident, there was no smell of fuel or fuel spillage. He stated that 11 gallons of fuel had been added at the last refueling to bring the total fuel capacity to 22 gallons for this leg of the flight. There had been a conflicting indication of quantity between the fuel totalizer and the cockpit fuel gauge. The pilot stated that he felt that the totalizer was correct; however, there were indications that he did not verify this either visually or with a dip stick.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight of the airplane, and subsequent fuel exhaustion due to an inadequate supply of fuel, which resulted in loss of engine power and an emergency landing. Uneven terrain in the emergency landing area was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA154
- Event ID
- 20001208X06371
- Case number
- SEA96LA154
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-07-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fdd900ec3d244217f6804104c23918a1370fe7f0a50ad6625189b7e4945f2c5a; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:39:48.831Z.