IAD00FA067 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Wittman Regional Airport (OSH) to Bluffton Airport (5G7)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD00FA067
- 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
- 1 · 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5271P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wittman Regional Airport (OSH), OSH KOSH, WITo Bluffton Airport (5G7), OH
- 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
- 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; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, improper
- Pilot in command › Maneuver, abrupt
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed with full fuel from Bluffton Airport (5G7), Bluffton, Ohio, and flew to Rock County Airport (JVL), Janesville, Wisconsin. In Janesville, the pilot purchased 21.7 gallons of fuel, then flew to Whittman Regional Airport (OSH), Oshkosh, Wisconsin, a total of 94.9 nautical miles. A few days later, the pilot departed OSH and flew to 5G7, a total of 314 nautical miles. Examination of potential fuel stops along the intended route of flight revealed that none had fueled N5271P. On final approach to 5G7, the airplane was observed to bank sharply to the right, then 'nose dive straight down into the field.' A thin tree line ran perpendicular to the final approach course, and was located between the wreckage and the end of the runway. On-scene examination revealed that there was no evidence of fuel in either wing tank. Both tanks were intact and there was no evidence of fuel streaking or staining. Examination of the fuel lines revealed that they were intact and clear of blockages. Examination of the engine and airplane revealed there were no mechanical deficiencies.
Probable cause
Pilot's improper fuel calculations, which resulted in fuel exhaustion. Also causal, was his abrupt maneuver during the forced landing, which resulted in an inadvertent stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD00FA067
- Event ID
- 20001212X21479
- Case number
- IAD00FA067
- 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: 14757741214b8c37d2dc5aa4dced368ac0d927631dec7e73231b1a966beb4e9d; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:59:13.296Z.