NYC91LA010 · Swearingen SA-26AT
Swearingen SA-26AT · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) to Monongahela, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA010
- 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
Swearingen SA-26AT
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-26
- 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
- N690X
- Operator
- Zagari & Associates
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PATo Monongahela, PA
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT WAS FROM MONONGAHELA TO PITTSBURGH TO TETERBORO,NJ, THEN RETURN TO PITTSBURGH AND BACK TO MONONGAHELA. THE FLIGHT DEPARTED MONONGAHELA WITH 100 GALS OF FUEL; 160 GALS WERE ADDED AT PITTSBURGH; AND 80 GALS WERE ADDED AT TETERBORO. THE PILOT WANTED TO ADD MORE FUEL AT TETERBORO BUT THE OWNER DID NOT DUE TO THE HIGHER COST OF FUEL AND THE FUEL GAGE INDICATIONS. DURING THE RETURN TRIP NO FUEL WAS ADDED AT PITTSBURGH BECAUSE THE PILOT DID NOT HAVE A CREDIT CARD PROVIDED BY THE OWNER OR MONEY TO BUY FUEL. THE FLIGHT EXPERIENCED A TWO-ENGINE POWER LOSS DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION WHILE APPROACHING THE MONONGAHELA AIRPORT. SUBSEQUENT EXAMINATION OF THE COCKPIT FUEL GAGES SHOWED A TOTAL OF 125 GALS IN THE LEFT TANK AND 90 GALS IN THE RIGHT TANK; THE READING REMAINED THE SAME WITH OR WITHOUT POWER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE MONITORING OF THE FUEL BURN WHICH RESULTED IN TOTAL FUEL EXHAUSTION. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S LIMITED EXPERIENCE IN THE MAKE AND MODEL OF AIRPLANE, AN ERRONEOUS FUEL QUANTITY INDICATION, AND THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO REFUEL THE AIRPLANE DUE TO PRESSURE FROM THE OWNER TO NOT ADD FUEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA010
- Event ID
- 20001212X24528
- Case number
- NYC91LA010
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: e7f55aef9f00212dd42d8080423ebd9154c3243e663df21dd7079d175a8cebf5; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:14:02.885Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative states the flight was to "RETURN TO PITTSBURGH AND BACK TO MONONGAHELA" and lost power "WHILE APPROACHING THE MONONGAHELA AIRPORT"; the destination was not recorded.