CHI98LA363 · Piper PA-24
Piper PA-24 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Bartlesville Municipal Airport (BVO) to Alluitsup Paa Heliport (LLU)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA363
- 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-24
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5029P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bartlesville Municipal Airport (BVO), Bartlesville, OKTo Alluitsup Paa Heliport (LLU)
- 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 final
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Fuel system › Starvation
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Closed
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported she entered the landing pattern and performed the pre-landing checklist. She lowered the landing gear, pulled carburetor heat on, turned the fuel pump on, switched to the fullest fuel tank, and reduced power. She turned from base to final and added a little power, but 'there wasn't any power there.' The second pilot switched magnetos and tried to restart the engine, but was unsuccessful. The second pilot took control of the airplane and turned to the left to land in a soybean field, since there were powerlines and a railroad track between the airplane and the runway. The airplane landed in a left wing low attitude and the left wing hit the ground before the airplane skidded to a stop. All engine, propeller controls and flight controls were verified as being intact and operable. The fuel selector was found in the OFF position. The pilot and second pilot were asked whether either of them had moved the fuel selector to OFF after the accident had occurred and both stated they had not. The fuel drain plug from the carburetor was removed and only a trace of fuel, two or three drops, came out.
Probable cause
the pilot improperly positioned the fuel selector to the closed position causing fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA363
- Event ID
- 20001211X11031
- Case number
- CHI98LA363
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1998-09-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 59ec3e9cf5fe8d6a29bce400009b7954ef00f015481a95c1bcdfa094bcf6b95f; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:39:50.220Z.