FTW00LA271 · Temco Luscombe 11A
Temco Luscombe 11A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Panola County Sharpe Field (4F2) to HMU · Hammond, LA
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA271
- 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
Temco Luscombe 11A
- Aircraft type
- Temco Luscombe 11
- 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
- N1689B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Panola County Sharpe Field (4F2), Carthage, TXTo HMU · Hammond, LA
- 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 go-around
- 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 › Fuel consumption calculations, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot topped off the airplane's fuel tanks (total capacity of 40.0 gallons) and departed on a cross-country flight. The first leg of the flight was 1 hour 34 minutes in duration, and upon arrival at the refueling airport, he added 33.3 gallons of fuel to top off the fuel tanks. While on the ground, he miscalculated the actual fuel consumption rate for the flight and did not know that the fuel consumption rate had been excessive. The pilot then departed for the destination airport. He was on final approach and executed a go-around when a landing airplane failed to clear the runway with enough time for him to make a safe landing. The airplane was climbing through 300 feet agl when the engine lost total power. Subsequently, a forced landing was executed, during which the airplane impacted trees and terrain. Examination of the airplane revealed that the right wing fuel tank's filler cap was in good condition and there were no stains around the fuel cap. A fuel stain was observed around the left wing fuel tank's filler cap that was 12 inches long and fanned out from the width of the cap to 8 inches wide. The cap was removed by a mechanic and when the cap was replaced the mechanic noted that 'it didn't fit very tight as it should.' A fuel stain was observed on the left side of the vertical fin approximately 2 inches wide and 14 inches high. Additionally, 8 ounces of fuel was drained from the fuel system.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper fuel consumption calculations, which resulted in fuel exhaustion. A contributory factor was the fuel cap leak, due to a worn seal.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA271
- Event ID
- 20001212X21988
- Case number
- FTW00LA271
- 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: 55ee41e0e8ba3068bc11f940e0b067773e88d0390e887e5d0fcf89515c02f330; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:24:42.168Z.