CHI00LA156 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Waukegan National Airport (UGN) to HFY
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA156
- 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
- N4142F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waukegan National Airport (UGN), Waukegan, ILTo HFY
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight to new destination, not performed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, 10-miles from the destination airport, the engine quit. The pilot was able to restart the engine after selecting the other fuel tank. The engine experienced two subsequent power losses before the engine was unable to be restarted. The final engine failure was experienced 2-miles from the destination airport. The pilot stated that he executed a forced landing, but was unable to reach runway 19 and impacted the airport perimeter fence during the approach. The proposed flight was to depart Greenwood Municipal Airport (HFY), Greenwood, Indiana, fly to Waukegan Regional Airport (UGN), Waukegan, Illinois, and return to HFY. The pilot reported that he had planned on burning 10-gallons per hour, from which he calculated an endurance of 4-hours 48-minutes. The total duration of the trip, as recorded by the pilot's global positioning system unit, was 3-hours 52-minutes. The aircraft's HOBBS meter indicated that 3.9-hours had elapsed from the initial departure from HFY. The pilot indicated that his engine cruise setting was 2,350 rpm and that he had leaned the mixture when at cruising altitude. According to the Pilot Operating Handbook (POH), appropriate for the serial number of the accident aircraft, the fuel flow was listed as 9.5 gallons/hour for a power setting of 65-percent of maximum power. The POH lists the maximum useable fuel capacity as 48-gallons. Utilizing 48-gallons of useable fuel and a flight time of 3.9-hours results in a calculated fuel flow of approximately 12.307 gallons/hour. Post-accident investigation failed to find any fuel in the fuel strainer bowl, fuel line leading to the carburetor, or fuel filter located on the electric fuel pump. The pilot reported that he first experienced engine power interruptions approximately 10-miles north of the destination airport. There was an airport, Post-Air Airport (7L8), Indianapolis, Indiana, located 028.4 degrees-magnetic from the destination airport at a distance of 8.1-nautical miles.
Probable cause
The improper in-flight decision of the pilot not to land at the nearest airport at the first loss of engine power. Factors to the accident were fuel exhaustion, the excessive fuel flow, and the airport perimeter fence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA156
- Event ID
- 20001212X21176
- Case number
- CHI00LA156
- 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: 392b10a6f520f77e54575f7b35e8cb0f8e6935d240cedf01e28f68fae80b0b52; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:49:15.586Z.