CHI97LA267 · Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18A
Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Jablonski Airport (33C) to Jablonski Airport (33C)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA267
- 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
Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18A
- Aircraft type
- WSK PZL Mielec M-18
- 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
- N178RA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jablonski Airport (33C), NUNICA, MITo Jablonski Airport (33C)
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Following an agricultural flight, the pilot noticed that the right fuel tank was reading under 1/8 full and the left fuel tank was 1/4 full. The pilot opened the overflow valve and slipped the airplane to balance the fuel levels. The pilot did this maneuver twice and the fuel gauge indicated 1/8 full in both tanks. The pilot said that the fuel pressure was then lost and a total power loss occurred. He tried the regain fuel pressure by using the wobble pump but could not restart the engine. The airplane was moved and disassembled by the owner before the fuel tanks could be inspected. The owner said that the airplane manufacturer said fuel feed problems are caused by an air leak in the cover plates on the fuel tanks. The pilot did not dump his chemical load following the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
the pilot inadequate fuel system management which led to a fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA267
- Event ID
- 20001208X08594
- Case number
- CHI97LA267
- 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: 8a4e1a9c0a2d7ccc8546a1c3202ae176f49f4206ca68b4aca1ab8f0ace8d1675; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:46:55.809Z.