CHI97LA003 · Piper PA-16
Piper PA-16 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Ames Municipal Airport (AMW) to Warsaw Municipal Airport (ASW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA003
- 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
Piper PA-16
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-16
- 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
- N5749H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ames Municipal Airport (AMW), Ames, IATo Warsaw Municipal Airport (ASW), Warsaw, IN
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Low altitude flight/maneuver, performed
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was topped off at Ames, Iowa, prior to the last leg of the flight. The lineman reported that he opened the left fuel cap and observed that the left tank was full. He replaced the cap and refueled the right fuel tank. The pilot reported he did not visually check the fuel level, but relied on visually checking the fuel caps from behind the wing. The aircraft burned an average of 7.5 gph fuel. The aircraft had 4.5 to 4.8 hours of fuel on board. The flight lasted about 3.7 hours. Witnesses reported the aircraft circling at about 300 feet AGL and the engine sputtering before it quit. The left wing hit a tree before the aircraft impacted the ground. The aircraft skidded up on its nose with the tail nearly vertical. The examination of the aircraft revealed that a fuel stain initiating from the left fuel cap and streaming towards the rear of the wing was clearly visible. The engine and flight controls exhibited continuity. There were open fields near the crash site. The pilot reported that the fuel gauges were unreliable.
Probable cause
fuel starvation due to an inadequate preflight and the pilot performed a low altitude maneuver which prevented him from selecting suitable terrain for landing. Additional factors included the loose fuel cap, fuel siphoning, and unreliable fuel gauges.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA003
- Event ID
- 20001208X06849
- Case number
- CHI97LA003
- 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: 9df9e593e5e7634c8077fef5d2ade823954cd8dbbb479c0ad892b4be57375514; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:25:26.201Z.