FTW87FA134 · Rockwell COMMANDER 112 COMMANDER
Rockwell COMMANDER 112 COMMANDER · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW87FA134
- 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
Rockwell COMMANDER 112 COMMANDER
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell COMMANDER 112
- 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
- N1153J
- Operator
- Frank de Cicco
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ON 6/6/87 A ROCKWELL COMMANDER 112, N1153J, IMPACTED THE TERRAIN NEAR MEACHAM FIELD, FORTH WORTH, TEXAS WHILE ON A PHOTOGRAPHY FLIGHT. THE PILOT HAD BEEN CLEARED TO LAND ON RUNWAY 16L WHEN THE TOWER CHANGED THE RUNWAY ASSIGNMENT TO 16R. THE PILOT ADDED POWER AND THE ENGINE QUIT CAUSING THE PILOT TO ATTEMPT A FORCED LANDING TO THE OFF RAMP OF INTERSTATE HIGHWAY 820. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED IN ROUGH, UNEVEN TERRAIN AND WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED. THE PILOT AND TWO PASSENGERS ONBOARD WERE NOT INJURED. THE PILOT PLACED THE FUEL TANK SELECTOR ON THE RIGHT TANK DURING THE LANDING SEQUENCE. INSPECTION OF THE ACFT REVEALED NO FUEL IN THE ENGINE, LESS THAN 1 QT IN THE RT WING TK AND APPROX 17 GALS IN THE LEFT WING TANK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW87FA134
- Event ID
- 20001213X31190
- Case number
- FTW87FA134
- 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: 285fcae3347d4e07563227fa579fa302a56e9c7ec0c9de47a30974a2893aebcd; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:04:13.213Z.