FTW01FA007 · Piper PA-23-160
Mesquite Flight Center Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Jim Hogg County Airport (HBV) to Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01FA007
- 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-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N3390P
- Operator
- Mesquite Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jim Hogg County Airport (HBV), Hebbronville, TXTo Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF), San Antonio, TX
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the day cross-country flight in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), the pilot reported a loss of left engine power and then reported he was unable to maintain altitude. The controller provided the pilot with a vector to the nearest airport. The pilot descended the airplane, reported he was in visual meteorological conditions, and reported the airport in sight. There were no further transmissions from the pilot. The initial ground scar measurements at the accident site were consistent with the length of the right wing, the right engine cowling, and the nose of the airplane. The right wing leading edge and the nose were crushed aft, upward, and to the right. The pilot had logged a total of 24 hours in actual IMC, of which 3.9 hours (.8-hour in the make and model of the accident airplane) were during the 30 days prior to the accident. A maintenance entry stated in part: "disconnected aux fuel cells and capped and plugged lines, fastened fuel covers for aux tanks down and placarded "DO NOT FILL AUX TANKS" placarded fuel console "AUX FUEL NOT AVAILABLE." Examination of the airplane confirmed the aux tanks were unusable. The main fuel tank capacity was 72 gallons total. The integrity of the fuel system was not compromised, continuity was confirmed from the main fuel tanks to the respective engines, and no discrepancies were found that would have precluded operation of the system prior to the accident. An estimated 2 ounces of blue colored fuel was found in the left main fuel sump. Five and one-half quarts of blue colored fuel were drained from the right main fuel tank. By rotating the crankshaft manually, continuity was confirmed from the crankshaft flange to the rear accessory case gears, and thumb compression was obtained on all the cylinders on both engines. Both left propeller blades were found against the stop locks (non-feather position), and the blades exhibited no physical evidence of rotation. A test run was conducted for the left engine, and no discrepancies were found that would indicate the engine was incapable of producing power prior to the impact.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to refuel the airplane which resulted in fuel exhaustion and subsequent loss of engine power. Also contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to feather the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01FA007
- Event ID
- 20001212X22149
- Case number
- FTW01FA007
- 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: bcc6d17145e2eb25da96ca2355ba3dfb73bb12d373b06ae9a04482a25ebdd994; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:49:35.181Z.