SEA00LA004 · Thomson VANS RV-6
Thomson VANS RV-6 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From S78 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA00LA004
- 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
Thomson VANS RV-6
- Aircraft type
- Thomson VANS RV-6
- 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
- N541JT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S78To 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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 › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while on short final approach at an altitude of approximately 150 feet above ground level, the left fuel tank ran dry and the engine lost power. The pilot switched fuel tanks and attempted to restart the engine. The engine would not start and the pilot performed a forced landing into a pasture. During the forced landing, the right main landing gear and wing were damaged. Post-accident examination disclosed that the aircraft's right fuel tank was full and its left fuel tank was empty. The pilot reported that no mechanical malfunction or failure was involved.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management, resulting in fuel starvation. A factor was the aircraft's low altitude at the time engine power was lost.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA00LA004
- Event ID
- 20001212X20052
- Case number
- SEA00LA004
- 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: a49d6683a77a5175935cef8b96d49a9f9943b0d2820f1a18808fc8e4a4eb8295; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:51:19.102Z.