NYC97LA168 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport (LEW) to Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97LA168
- 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-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N47900
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport (LEW), Auburn, METo Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE), Latrobe, PA
- 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 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 › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said he visually verified that the airplane had full fuel tanks before departure. He estimated that would provide 6 hours of fuel endurance for the anticipated 4 hour and 50 minute flight. The pilot stated the engine began to miss as he approached his destination. He said he switched tanks several times and rocked the airplane using rudder to search for more fuel. The pilot attempted a forced landing at an airport prior to his destination, but the airplane crashed at the departure end of the landing runway. Examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of fuel. The Hobbs meter reflected 5.1 hours from the time of departure.
Probable cause
the pilot's inaccurate fuel consumption calculations and improper in-flight planning/decision, which led to fuel exhaustion, loss of engine power, and a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97LA168
- Event ID
- 20001208X08731
- Case number
- NYC97LA168
- 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: 3fec7cafee19b3473b3f190d1208a2d33da89dcc27eabf312c93b2a16c03f213; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:13:14.154Z.