FTW99FA021 · Piper PA-28R-200
MVP Aero Academy Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From M07 · Searcy, AR to Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99FA021
- 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
- 3 · 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-28R-200
- 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
- N4726R
- Operator
- MVP Aero Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M07 · Searcy, ARTo Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO)
- 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
- 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; Tree(s); Wire, transmission
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a dark night forced landing, following a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion, the airplane collided with terrain. On the flight plan for the flight from Searcy, AR, to Waco (ACT), TX, the airline transport pilot estimated 3 hrs 10 min flight time and 4 hrs fuel available. At 2 hrs 33 min into the flight, the pilot amended his destination to Conroe (CXO), TX, after receiving reports of instrument weather conditions at ACT and visual conditions at CXO. At 4 hrs 12 min into the flight, the pilot received clearance for an instrument approach to runway 14 at CXO. The pilot's acknowledgement of the clearance was the last radio communication received from the airplane. At 4 hrs 20 min into the flight, the last radar return showed the airplane 4 miles west-northwest of CXO. A witness observed the airplane fly over a road at a low altitude as though 'trying to land,' collide with a tree, hit a power line, and impact the ground. No discolored vegetation or fuel odor was noted at the accident site. One of the two fuel tanks was intact and contained 6 ounces of fuel. Including the accident flight and a 0.8-hr checkout flight, the 25,000-hr pilot had 8.6 hrs flight time in the accident airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. Factors were the dark night light conditions prevailing for the ensuing forced landing and the pilot's lack of experience in the make and model of airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99FA021
- Event ID
- 20001211X11416
- Case number
- FTW99FA021
- 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 1998-11-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d059b6f172651a9233fe7a5f24c59ddd2f802055b17d74555ddfb0af5ad74ba4; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:19:49.746Z.