ATL89LA002 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Key Field / Meridian Regional Airport (MEI) to Quincy Municipal Airport (2J9)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89LA002
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N100J
- Operator
- Ivy V. Ausburn · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Key Field / Meridian Regional Airport (MEI), Meridian, MSTo Quincy Municipal Airport (2J9), Quincy, FL
- 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 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PLT, HE HAD REQUESTED THE ACFT BE FULLY SVCD WITH FUEL BEFORE TAKEOFF; HOWEVER, HE DID NOT VISUALLY CHECK THE FUEL. HE RPRTD THAT AFTER TAKEOFF, HE HAD FLOWN ABOUT 50 MIN WHEN HE NOTED THE RGT TANK, WHICH HE WAS USING, INDCD EMPTY. HE SAID HE NORMALLY FLEW FOR AN HOUR BEFORE SWITCHING TO ANOTHER TANK. BELIEVING HE HAD USED ONLY 9 GAL FROM THE 30 GAL TANK, HE ELECTED TO DELAY SWITCHING TO THE OTHER TANK. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE ENG LOST POWER. THE PLT MOVED THE FUEL SELECTOR TO THE OTHER TANK, BUT WAS UNABLE TO RESTORE SUFFICIENT POWER TO SUSTAIN FLT. SUBSEQUENTLY, DRG AN EMERG LANDING, THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES & A FENCE, THEN CAME TO REST UPSIDE DOWN. THE RGT TANK WAS FOUND TO BE EMPTY; ONLY 7 GAL OF FUEL WAS DRAINED FROM THE LEFT TANK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89LA002
- Event ID
- 20001213X26978
- Case number
- ATL89LA002
- 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: f5e1e5d14de8c0de6ca4f7bb7598cc0ba4a3009d75257695975d28042fd94ef2; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:23:41.108Z.