FTW97LA198 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From M07 · Searcy, AR to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA198
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N7967P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M07 · Searcy, ARTo 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
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was to fly to a nearby airport, practice touch and go landings, and return. He anticipated the local flight to be about 1 hour. During the preflight, the pilot inspected the fuel and noted that the 'left main [tank] was down quite a bit', the 'left auxiliary [tank] was down some', the 'right main [tank] was down slightly', and the right auxiliary [tank] was full.' He recalled that when he flew the airplane last (the previous week), he had switched from using the left main tank to the right main tank, and flew for about 30 minutes on the right main tank. He further reported that, he did not have access to the fuel tank on the field so he did not top off the fuel tanks. After departure, the pilot flew to the nearby airport, and made 3 or 4 landings to a full stop. While on the return flight, the engine lost power and the pilot was forced to land in heavily wooded terrain. Examination of the wreckage at the accident site by an FAA inspector revealed that the left and right main fuel tanks were empty, the left auxiliary tank was 1/2 to 3/4 full and the right auxiliary fuel tank was full. The fuel selector handle was found in the 'fuel off' position.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power resulting from fuel starvation due to the pilot's mismanagement of available fuel. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA198
- Event ID
- 20001208X07921
- Case number
- FTW97LA198
- 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: f908c0ab3b1340ebde380cd1da6e34f471dc702f5b63121a8dfd742850597bcf; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:04:37.533Z.