CHI00LA272 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Ainsworth Regional Airport (ANW) to Del Caribe Santiago Mariño International Airport (PMV)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA272
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N2451R
- Operator
- Dennis Braunesreither
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Ainsworth Regional Airport (ANW), Ainsworth, NETo Del Caribe Santiago Mariño International Airport (PMV)
- 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
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, improper
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, low
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that prior to departing Spearfish, South Dakota, he fueled the airplane with 30 gallons. Approaching Fremont, Nebraska, the pilot said he noticed his fuel gauges were showing approximately 10 gallons in each tank. Nearing his destination airport at Plattsmouth, Nebraska, the pilot said the fuel tank he was on 'seemed to run dry.' He switched tanks and continued to the airport. Approximately 2 miles from the airport, he turned on the fuel boost pump. Shortly after, the airplane's engine 'sputtered, then quit.' The pilot said that he 'switched tanks again, rocked the wings to free all the fuel, and the engine ran for a couple of seconds, and quit.' The pilot said that he repeated this action two additional times with no success. He held the airplane's altitude so that it would clear a set of power lines in front of him. 'The stall warning light was flashing as I passed over the wires. I dropped the nose at this point to prevent a stall.' Seeing a roadway ahead, the pilot dropped the nose of the airplane so that he wouldn't 'hit the ditch and road embankment. We hit the ground and turned ... sideways ...' Examination of the airplane revealed approximately 1/2 cup of fuel on board. No other anomalies were revealed.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper preflight planning, improper in-flight planning and decision not to land before exhausting the airplane's fuel. Factors relating to this accident were the power lines, the roadway, and the ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA272
- Event ID
- 20001212X21689
- Case number
- CHI00LA272
- 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: f38155714edb25fdf9422463be6ad9f552cf3d1610ac421a56aa4d14533a9505; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:30:39.534Z.