BFO92LA076 · Piper PA-28-180
Mcguire Afb Aero Club Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Mc Guire Air Force Base (WRI) to Pittsburgh/Butler Regional Airport (BTP)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92LA076
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N55733
- Operator
- Mcguire Afb Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mc Guire Air Force Base (WRI), McGuire AFB, NJTo Pittsburgh/Butler Regional Airport (BTP), Butler, PA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- 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 › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHEN THE PILOT NEARED THE DESTINATION AIRPORT, HE WAS UNABLE TO LOCATE IT. SUBSEQUENTLY THE ENGINE LOST POWER. HE MADE A FORCED LANDING IN FIELD; THE LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED DURING THE LANDING. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED ABOUT 5 MILES EAST OF THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. THE FLIGHT DURATION WAS ABOUT 3.5 HOURS. THE PILOT USED THE HOBBS METER TO TRACK TIME. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE HOBBS METER WAS OPERATING ABOUT 60% SLOWER THAN THE ACTUAL ELAPSED TIME. THE PILOT REPORTED HE SWITCHED FUEL TANKS, FROM RIGHT TO LEFT, 1.1 HOURS OF HOBBS TIME (ESTIMATED 0.67% HOUR ACTUAL) INTO THE FLIGHT. THE EXAMINATION REVEALED VIRTUALLY NO FUEL IN THE FUEL LINES FORWARD OF THE FIREWALL. ABOUT TWO OUNCES OF FUEL WAS DRAINED FROM THE CARBURETOR. THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS POSITIONED TO THE LEFT TANK. THERE WAS NO FUEL FOUND IN THE LEFT TANK; HOWEVER, THE FUEL LINES FROM THE TANK WERE SEVERED. EIGHTEEN GALLONS OF FUEL WAS DRAINED FROM THE RIGHT TANK. THE ENGINE OPERATED SATISFACTORY DURING A TEST RUN.
Probable cause
THE PILOT MISMANAGED THE FUEL SUPPLY, WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL STARVATION AND THE LOST OF ENGINE POWER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92LA076
- Event ID
- 20001211X14600
- Case number
- BFO92LA076
- 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 1992-05-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c8b52aab0305baff77f5fb82648cea14f73f2854324482338c044b3f8e61face; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:16:48.480Z.