IAD98LA077 · Bennett PIEL EMERAUDE PIEL EMERA
Bennett PIEL EMERAUDE PIEL EMERA · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Elkin Municipal Airport (ZEF) to North Central West Virginia Airport (CKB)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD98LA077
- 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
Bennett PIEL EMERAUDE PIEL EMERA
- Aircraft type
- Bennett PIEL EMERAUDE
- 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
- N86WB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elkin Municipal Airport (ZEF), ELKIN MUNICIPAL, NCTo North Central West Virginia Airport (CKB), Clarksburg, WV
- 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
- Partial 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
- Fuel system, strainer › Blocked(total)
- Other person › Maintenance, annual inspection, not complied with
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported he had just purchased the airplane and was flying to his home base. While in cruise flight, the pilot experienced surges of engine power between full and idle power. After the second decrease in engine RPM, the pilot selected a forced landing area. During the approach to a field the airplane's propeller struck a power line. After touchdown, the airplane continued approximately 300 to 400 feet before it struck a fence and several trees. An examination of the wreckage by an FAA Airworthiness Inspector revealed 'extreme' amounts of debris in the fuel strainer bowl. Examination of the maintenance records revealed an annual inspection had been recorded by an FAA certificated airframe and powerplant mechanic 4.5 aircraft hours prior to the accident. The previous owner revealed to the FAA Inspector that he had performed the inspection and forged the mechanic's signature in the maintenance logbook.
Probable cause
A blocked fuel strainer due to an inadequate maintenance inspection by the previous owner, which resulted in fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD98LA077
- Event ID
- 20001211X10606
- Case number
- IAD98LA077
- 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: 9fb978e40f7141cd9c3deb60af9f3af3d74fc8c3b7b15757ace90a0180d95bac; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:46:39.670Z.