BFO92LA024 · Piper PA-34-200T
Piper PA-34-200T · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From an unrecorded airport to Marion Municipal Airport (MNN)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92LA024
- 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-34-200T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N8434H
- Operator
- Central Skyport
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Marion Municipal Airport (MNN), Marion, OH
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Powerplant controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT AFTER TAKING OFF AT NIGHT, HE RAISED THE LANDING GEAR, STARTED A TURN TO THE OUTBOUND HEADING AND ADJUSTED BOTH PROPELLER CONTROLS. HE THEN TURNED ON THE OVERHEAD LIGHT, ADJUSTED THE HEAT BY MOVING BOTH SELECTOR LEVERS TO THE CENTER POSITION, CONTINUED CLIMBING AND HAD STARTED TO ADJUST THE MIXTURE CONTROLS, WHEN ATC GAVE HIM A FREQUENCY CHANGE. AT THAT TIME, BOTH ENGINES LOST POWER WITHOUT WARNING. HE DECLARED AN EMERGENCY AND TRIED TO RESTART THE ENGINES, BUT WAS UNABLE. HE SAID HE THEN 'CUT' THE MIXTURE CONTROLS AND MADE AN EMERGENCY WHEELS UP LANDING IN A FIELD. THE AIRPLANE WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED. AN INVESTIGATION SHOWED THERE WAS SUFFICIENT FUEL WITH NO CONTAMINATES. FUEL FLOW WAS ESTABLISHED FROM THE FUEL TANK(S) TO THE FUEL CONTROL UNIT(S) BY USING THE ELECTRIC FUEL PUMP. THE LEFT ENGINE WAS STARTED AND TEST RUN WITH NO ANOMALIES NOTED. THE RIGHT ENGINE COULD NOT BE RUN DUE TO ITS UNSAFE CONDITION, BUT AN EXAM OF THE ENGINE REVEALED NO ANOMALIES.
Probable cause
FUEL STARVATION IN BOTH ENGINES, DUE TO THE PILOT'S IMPROPER POSITIONING OF THE ENGINE OR FUEL CONTROLS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92LA024
- Event ID
- 20001211X13950
- Case number
- BFO92LA024
- 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: 5c5b8e6c33a25a5ba9af7d15163a6ac5ec32006778264a13a9a514c6700495f4; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:25:00.065Z.