NYC98LA065 · Boeing A75L300
Boeing A75L300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Warwick Municipal Airport (N72) to Orange Poultry Farm Airport (4NY1)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA065
- 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
Boeing A75L300
- Aircraft type
- Boeing A75
- 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
- N55412
- Operator
- David G. Mac Millan · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warwick Municipal Airport (N72), Warwick, NYTo Orange Poultry Farm Airport (4NY1), NY
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 contamination; Tree(s)
- 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 › Contamination, other than water
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot used a 55 gallon drum with a pump and filter to refuel the airplane. Earlier in the day, he added 10 to 15 gallons of fuel from the drum to the airplane. He then departed on a flight without draining the gascolater. During the flight, the engine lost total power and the pilot performed a forced landing to a wooded area. After the accident, when fuel was drained from the gascolater into a 6 inch diameter glass jar, 1 1/2 inches of water was present at the bottom of the jar. Additionally, unidentified particles were found suspended in the fuel throughout the sample. After the fuel was drained, and the engine refueled, a run-up was conducted and the engine performed satisfactorily.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight which failed to reveal fuel contamination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA065
- Event ID
- 20001211X09602
- Case number
- NYC98LA065
- 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: 39de11bef3407872e0b2016c74a2466f42a29f5aa22655e9a4246696db41230b; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:02:55.286Z.