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BFO92LA026 · Piper PA-28-161

29 Jan 1992 · EAST TAUNTON, MA, United States

King Aviation Services Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach

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Event

NTSB case
BFO92LA026
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-28-161

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
N8379N
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo not recorded
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)
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Destroyed

Cause areas

  • Dual student › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
  • Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
  • Fuel supply › Inadequate
  • Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of East Taunton, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

DURING AN APPROACH TO THE AIRPORT, THE ENGINE LOST POWER. AN EMERGENCY LANDING WAS ATTEMPTED ON RUNWAY 12, BUT THE AIRPLANE CLIPPED TREES, HIT A HOUSE AND COLLIDED WITH TERRAIN/WATER SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. ACCORDING TO AIRPORT FUELING RECORDS AND THE HOBBS METER READING, THE AIRPLANE HAD FLOWN FOR APPROXIMATELY 5.2 HOURS SINCE IT LAST RECEIVED FUEL. AN ON SCENE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THERE WAS NO RESIDUAL FUEL IN THE CARBURETOR, AND APPROXIMATELY ONE PINT OF FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL TANKS.

Probable cause

INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT BY THE DUAL STUDENT AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT (CFI), WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL EXHAUSTION DUE TO AN INADEQUATE SUPPLY OF FUEL.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record BFO92LA026
Event ID
20001211X13951
Case number
BFO92LA026
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: f57a2aacda1be484af642d74c52a07ec84adb2dfbd9f274920f8cb190e9ff621; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:08:26.437Z.