MIA00LA218 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident while standing
From Naples Municipal Airport (APF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA218
- 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-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
- N980AC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Naples Municipal Airport (APF), Naples, FLTo 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
- Standing · engine(s) not operating
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Proper descent rate, not attained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
At departure, the airplane had been operated for 1.8 hours since fueling. The pilot rated student (student) had not received systems ground instruction but preflighted the airplane. Fuel was noted in the right main fuel tank; he intended on inquiring about the quantity with the CFI, but didn't. The flight departed with the fuel selector positioned to the right main fuel tank and remained on that position until the engine experienced a loss of power. The CFI took the controls and stated she moved the fuel selector; the student stated he could not recall if she moved the fuel selector after the loss of power but during the flight, 'he did not touch the fuel selector at all.' The CFI stated the airplane impacted the ground at about 100 knots; the student stated that the airplane, 'came straight down for the last few feet.' Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the fuel selector was positioned to the right main fuel tank; no fuel was noted in that tank. The remaining fuel tanks were nearly full. No fuel was in the fuel line at the inlet of the engine driven fuel pump; the fuel selector and auxiliary fuel pump checked satisfactory.
Probable cause
The inadequate supervision of the pilot rated student by the CFI for her failure to note that the fuel selector was positioned to an empty fuel tank. Also, failure of the CFI to attain the proper rate of descent at touchdown resulting in a hard landing. Contributing to the accident was the total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation, and inadequate preflight planning preparation by the CFI for her failure to review the airplane systems with the pilot rated student. Also, inattention by the pilot rated student for his failure to reposition the fuel selector during the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA218
- Event ID
- 20001212X21547
- Case number
- MIA00LA218
- 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: 3ef8af1a582a69f7c3e39519270ba5ea698f5d1e339dd5be571a23ea91201efa; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:33:38.278Z.