CHI99LA219 · Piper PA-32R
Piper PA-32R · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Des Moines International Airport (DSM) to Hector International Airport (FAR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA219
- 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-32R
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N8451E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Des Moines International Airport (DSM), Des Moines, IATo Hector International Airport (FAR)
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Fuel system › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Flare, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported the airplane had 70 gallons of fuel (3.5 hours) on board at departure. The flight lasted approximately 3.0 hours. The pilot reported that during the pre-landing checklist, the left fuel gauge indicated 10 to 11 gallons when the engine quit. The pilot switched the fuel selector to the right fuel tank that indicated 8 gallons, but switched the fuel selector back to the left tank since the left fuel gauge indicated more fuel. An engine restart was attempted, but it would not start. The pilot flared several feet high, the stall warning horn sounded, and the airplane landed hard. The inspection of the airplane revealed that the left fuel tank contained .75 gallons of fuel. The right fuel tank was compromised during landing. The fuel gauges were checked by putting 5 gallons of fuel in the left fuel tank and 5 gallons of fuel in the repaired right fuel tank. The right fuel gauge read correctly. The left fuel gauge read 3 gallons. The pilot reported that the left fuel gauge had a history of reading inaccurately on an intermittent basis since 1996. The airplane's listed unusable fuel was 5 gallons.
Probable cause
fuel starvation due to the pilot's fuel mismanagement and the pilot's misjudgment of the landing flare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA219
- Event ID
- 20001212X19185
- Case number
- CHI99LA219
- 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: b38e0b5dcd042beeac8d2c677e91e18006008450f4b2fdbe89ebfc3dcf70fdbc; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:34:36.442Z.