CHI97LA042 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From OKC Will Rogers World Airport (OKC) to Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA042
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N31SW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From OKC Will Rogers World Airport (OKC), Oklahoma City, OKTo Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC), Kansas City, MO
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 final
- 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 › Flight to destination alternate, delayed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he had started working for the company four days before the accident. He said he had checked the Kansas City weather before he departed Oklahoma City, and expected it to be clear. However, when he arrived at Kansas City, fog had developed. The pilot flew three ILS approaches, but was unable to land due to the fog. He returned to VFR conditions near Garnett Municipal Airport. The pilot reported that as he approached the airport, one fuel tank ran dry. He switched fuel tanks. When he saw the airport, he was too close to make a landing, so he did a 360 degree turn to line up with the runway. However, the aircraft ran out of fuel, and the pilot made a forced landing into a field about 1/2 mile short of the runway. The landing gear was damaged during the landing. The aircraft was examined and no fuel was found in the tanks. The pilot reported that he was not tired or fatigued.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight planning/decision, including a delay in proceeding to an alternate airport after encountering fog during a night approach, which resulted in loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA042
- Event ID
- 20001208X07143
- Case number
- CHI97LA042
- 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: c75462b04fa1a39fba51e8734965d2f445762cb19025080006873d31cc4b95b7; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:44:25.348Z.