FTW90FA167 · Piper PA-28-140
Hangar Aviation Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Gillespie County Airport (T82) to San Antonio International Airport (SAT)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90FA167
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N55234
- Operator
- Hangar Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie County Airport (T82), Fredericksburg, TXTo San Antonio International Airport (SAT), 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 · descent
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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 › Fuel supply, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STU PLT AND ONE PAX WERE ON A NIGHT CROSS COUNTRY FLT WHEN A TTL NON-MECHANICAL LOSS OF POWER OCCURRED. THE PLT WAS IN CONTACT WITH ATC AND REQ'D CLEARANCE TO LAND. ATC GRANTED THE REQUEST AND OFFERED INFO ON A CLOSER ARPT. THE PLT INITIALLY REJECTED THE ALTERNATE ARPT AND REQ'D TO CONTINUE INBOUND. ACCORDING TO THE PAX, THE PLT MADE NUMEROUS ATTEMPTS TO RESTART THE ENGINE, BUT COULD NOT DO SO DURING THE FORCED LANDING. AFTER A MINUTE THE PLT REQ'D VECTORS TO THE ALTERNATE ARPT WHICH WERE TRANSMITTED TO HIM. HE ESTABLISHED A 70 MPH GLIDE TOWARD THE ARPT AND CONTINUED TO ATTEMPT A RESTART. HE SWITCHED FUEL TANKS SEVERAL TIMES AND USED THE PRIMER DURING THESE ATTEMPTS. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED INTO TREES APPROXIMATELY ONE MILE SOUTHWEST OF THE ALTERNATE ARPT. EXAMINATION OF THE FUEL TANKS REVEALED THE RIGHT TANK EMPTY AND THE LEFT TANK ONE QUARTER FULL. THE RIGHT TANK WAS FOUND SELECTED. THE ENGINE WAS SUCCESSFULLY TEST RUN AFTER THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
MISMANAGEMENT OF THE FUEL SUPPLY RESULTING IN FUEL STARVATION. FACTORS WERE THE PILOT'S LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN THE AIRPLANE, THE DARK NIGHT CONDITION, AND THE TREES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90FA167
- Event ID
- 20001212X24003
- Case number
- FTW90FA167
- 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: 4bbe7d1145c1e706ba1e75f7df162fb9b14574064e5e5bfc97cb031e6c885eb6; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:18:32.561Z.