BFO90LA030 · Piper PA-32-260
Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS) to Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO90LA030
- 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-32-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N3484W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS), Tulsa, OKTo Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI), Bristol, TN
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE VFR PLT DEPARTED TULSA, OK, ON A FLT TO BRISTOL, TN, WITH A FULL LOAD OF FUEL. NO EN ROUTE STOPS WERE MADE. IN THE AREA OF BRISTOL, THE PLT CTCD TRI-CITY APCH CTL & REQUESTED RADAR VECTORS TO THE TRI-CITY ARPT. HOWEVER, THE ACFT'S ALT WAS LOW & RADAR CTC WITH APCH CTL WAS NOT MADE. THE PLT BELIEVED HE WAS SW OF THE ARPT, BUT ATLANTA ARTCC NOTED THE ACFT WAS 40 MI NW OF TRI-CITY. THE PLT WAS ADZD OF HIS PSN, BUT HE CONTD ON AN EASTERLY HDG. THE PSGRS NOTED TURBC, SNW SHOWERS & REDUCED VIS. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE PLT ELECTED TO LND ON A STREET IN DUNGANNON, VA. SVRL WITNESSES NOTED AN INTERRUPTION OF ENG PWR BEFORE THE ACFT WAS LNDD. RPRTDLY, THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN HARD, THEN BOUNCED & WENT TO THE LEFT OF THE STREET, HITTING THE PORCH OF A HOUSE. THOUGH AN INTERRUPTION OF ENG PWR WAS RPRTD, THE PROP BLADES HAD EVIDENCE OF ROTATIONAL DMG. THE FUEL SEL WAS FND PSND TO THE RGT OTBRD TANK; THE 2 RGT TANKS HAD ABT 1 QT OF FUEL REMAINING. CG OF THE ACFT WAS CALCULATED TO BE BEHIND THE AFT LIMIT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER PLANNING/DECISION, WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL STARVATION AND LOSS OF ENGINE POWER, AND FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT DURING THE EMERGENCY LANDING. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, THE PILOT BECOMING LOST/DISORIENTED, THE SUBSEQUENT LOW FUEL SUPPLY, AND THE AIRCRAFT'S EXCESSIVE AFT CENTER-OF-GRAVITY (CG).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO90LA030
- Event ID
- 20001212X22519
- Case number
- BFO90LA030
- 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: e76e336ac1c80da935176e825e4240977c286fe27a37b16599466586491f3824; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:44:47.370Z.