FTW97LA212 · Grumman G-164A
Grumman G-164A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA212
- 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
Grumman G-164A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-164
- 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
- N842KG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 · aerial application
- 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 › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The operator stated that when he briefed the pilot on the day's mission, he told the pilot that the airplane was serviced with about one hour of fuel which was enough to spray the first field. The airplane departed on the first flight of the day from the operator's private airstrip with 125 gallons of pesticides. While spraying his second field, as he started the pull up for the turn to reverse direction, the engine 'began sputtering and coughing and continued to lose power.' The pilot elected to land on the cultivated field adjacent to a road in order to avoid power lines. During the landing roll on the waist high Milo field, the main landing gear tires sank in the soft ground and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest in the inverted position. Examination of the fuel system revealed that both fuel cells were dry and there was no evidence of fuel spill or leak near the wreckage. Examination of the engine did not provide any evidence of pre-existing anomalies that would have contributed to the loss of engine power. The pilot did not complete the Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report, NTSB Form 6120.1/2.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power as result of fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's failure to refuel the airplane. A factor was the unsuitable terrain available for the pilot to execute the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA212
- Event ID
- 20001208X07929
- Case number
- FTW97LA212
- 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: 1eaa3f5994681bf13911531135cc764dd17512053abc8c6354f376b1ce9fee30; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:32:35.479Z.