FTW88FA119 · Cessna 205
Cessna 205 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Perryton Ochiltree County Airport (PYX) to Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW88FA119
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 205
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 205
- 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
- N8181Z
- Operator
- Christopher, Vijjeswarapu S. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Perryton Ochiltree County Airport (PYX), Perryton, TXTo Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Austin, 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
- 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 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 › Flight controls, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inattentive
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RADIOED THAT HE WAS RUNNING OUT OF FUEL WHILE BEING VECTORED FOR LANDING. THE CEILING WAS ABOUT 900 FEET WITH 5 MILES VISIBILITY AND THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED IN A LEVEL GRASS FIELD. WITNESSES HEARD THE ENGINE CUTTING OUT AND A LOSS OF CONTROL OCCURRED BEFORE THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE GROUND. THE FLIGHT PLAN SHOWED 4.5 HOURS OF FUEL AND THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED ABOUT 3 HOURS AFTER TAKEOFF. RAW FUEL BURNS IN THE GRASS AT THE CRASH SITE SHOWED THAT FUEL EXHAUSTION DID NOT OCCUR. NO RECORD WAS FOUND THAT THE PILOT HAD SATISFACTORILY COMPLETED A BIENNIAL FLIGHT REVIEW WITHIN THE PAST 2 YEARS. HIS LOGBOOK SHOWED THAT HE HAD 5 HOURS ACTUAL OR SIMULATED INSTRUMENT FLIGHT TIME WITHIN THE PAST 6 MONTHS. POST ACC INVEST REVEALED THAT THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS ON THE RT TANK AND THE RT TANK CONTAINED NO FUEL WITH NO EVIDENCE OF FUEL LEAKAGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW88FA119
- Event ID
- 20001213X25952
- Case number
- FTW88FA119
- 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: e927534ea34695d43c9ec29212d1e52f38b8ece4379f6cf62d199c8369a4b737; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:41:20.389Z.