BFO92LA091 · Piper PA-28-181
Lexington Flying Club Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF) to Blue Grass Airport (LEX)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92LA091
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N2857D
- Operator
- Lexington Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF), Newport News, VATo Blue Grass Airport (LEX), Lexington, KY
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THE AIRPLANE WAS REFUELED TO CAPACITY OF 50 GALLONS BEFORE DEPARTURE. HE STATED HE WAS 4.2 HOURS INTO THE FLIGHT, DESCENDING FROM 8000 TO 4000 FEET MSL, WHEN THE ENGINE SPUTTERED SEVERAL TIMES, THEN LOST POWER. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, THE LEFT AND RIGHT FUEL GAGES INDICATED 4 AND ABOUT 7 TO 8 GALLONS, RESPECTIVELY, WHEN THE POWER LOSS OCCURRED, AND THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS SET TO THE LEFT TANK. ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE POWER, INCLUDING SWITCHING FUEL TANKS, WERE UNSUCCESSFUL. THE INVESTIGATION DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION. THE EXAMINATION REVEALED THE CARBURETOR INLET FUEL LINE WAS EMPTY. THE LEFT WING SEPARATED DURING THE CRASH IMPACT SEQUENCE, CAME TO REST IN A TREE, AND WAS NOT ACCESSIBLE FOR EXAMINATION. THE AMOUNT OF FUEL IN THE RIGHT TANK WAS UNDETERMINED. PERFORMANCE CHARTS INDICATED THAT WITH THE PILOT'S REPORTED POWER SETTINGS, THE FUEL FLOW SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT 8.4 GALLONS PER HOUR.
Probable cause
FUEL STARVATION FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON. DARKNESS AND TREES IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA WERE RELATED FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92LA091
- Event ID
- 20001211X15063
- Case number
- BFO92LA091
- 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 1992-07-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 05e353c403ce096f332d3814376a05c3d5f974cfcd883d02c96d8c114e56f250; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:52:14.757Z.