BFO93LA150 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From an unrecorded airport to Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport (LEW)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93LA150
- 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-24-250
- 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
- N7507P
- Operator
- Donald W Doran · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport (LEW), Lewiston, ME
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Caribou, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, HE HAD COMPLETED HIS PRETAKEOFF CHECKS AND RUN-UP SUCCESSFULLY. HE STATED THAT HE DEPARTED AND WAS AT 870 FEET MSL WHEN THE ENGINE LOST POWER. HE IMMEDIATELY CHECKED THE FUEL SELECTOR AND TRIED TO RESTART THE ENGINE, BUT HE WAS UNSUCCESSFUL. A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE IN A FIELD ABOUT A QUARTER MILE FROM THE AIRPORT. AN FAA INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE AIRPLANE, AND IT WAS REVEALED THAT BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT AUXILLARY TANKS WERE FULL, WHILE THE RIGHT MAIN TANK WAS EMPTY. THE PILOT REPORTED TO THE FAA THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS TOPPED OFF A WEEK PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT, AND HE HAD FLOWN 2.12 HOURS SINCE REFUELING. THE AIRPLANE'S MAIN TANKS CAPACITY IS 30 GALLONS EACH, AND THE FUEL CONSUMPTION IS 14.3 GPH. THE PILOT STATED THAT THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS ON THE LEFT TANK FOR TAKEOFF. TEST DID NOT DISCLOSE ANY EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION THAT WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER.
Probable cause
LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE UNSUITABLE TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93LA150
- Event ID
- 20001211X13327
- Case number
- BFO93LA150
- 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: 28cef38627d304281299d7a7f0b99e179a89c2dbd069919d9073cf63250773f0; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:49:24.454Z.