IAD01LA008 · Conn SONERAI II
Conn SONERAI II · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Winchester Regional Airport (OKV) to W32 · Clinton, MD
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD01LA008
- 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
Conn SONERAI II
- Aircraft type
- Conn SONERAI
- 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
- N188P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winchester Regional Airport (OKV), Winchester, VATo W32 · Clinton, MD
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Electrical system, electric switch › Fractured
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Weather condition › Turbulence, clear air
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Manassas, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot encountered turbulence while passing over a mountain range, en route to his destination airport. During the turbulence encounter, the pilot's knee came in contact with the instrument panel, and broke the right and left fuel pump toggle switches. Erratic fuel pressure indications were observed from the fuel pressure gauge. The pilot declared an emergency and as he prepared for a landing at a nearby airport, the engine lost power. About 1 mile from the end of the runway, the airplane encountered a downdraft, which caused the airplane to descend 600 feet. When the pilot realized he would not make the runway, he performed a forced landing in an open field. Examination of the airplane revealed the right fuel pump switch was 'completely shattered' and the left fuel pump switch was partially broken in the 'on' position.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation of the engine, caused by the fracturing of the fuel pump switches during a turbulence encounter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD01LA008
- Event ID
- 20001212X22170
- Case number
- IAD01LA008
- 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: e6aa41952964770dc6c887ccd462a608bc00cdcf80f0979b6c162718e2ec5862; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:03:30.262Z.