CHI96LA267 · Yakovlev YAK-3UA
Yakovlev YAK-3UA · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS) to Fond du Lac County Airport (FLD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA267
- 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
Yakovlev YAK-3UA
- Aircraft type
- Yakovlev YAK-3
- 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
- N33UA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS), Tulsa, OKTo Fond du Lac County Airport (FLD)
- 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he originally planned a direct flight at 11,500 feet, but had to descend to 1,500 feet to avoid weather for 10 to 15 minutes, then he climbed back to 11,500 feet. He said this accounted for his arrival in the vicinity of the destination airport with a low fuel level. When he contacted the control tower at the destination airport, he declared 'minimum fuel' but did not declare an emergency. There were approximately 20 other airplanes on the frequency. The pilot was cleared straight-in to the landing runway; however, the engine lost power, and the airplane was landed about three-quarters of a mile short of the intended runway. The pilot said that in order to avoid other aircraft during the approach, he slowed his airplane by lowering the flaps, which he said prevented him from reaching the runway. During a subsequent postaccident examination of the airplane, no mechanical anomaly was found.
Probable cause
the pilot's inaccurate fuel consumption calculations, and his inadequate in-flight planning and decision making. The pilot's failure to declare an emergency fuel condition (inadequate communication) was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA267
- Event ID
- 20001208X06436
- Case number
- CHI96LA267
- 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: 7cb86c5f9df94975eb6f0da1b6f317bcb1151304e8b62e0eca776f2a46ebed6d; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:39:55.137Z.