FTW87LA202 · Piper PA-28-181
B P Aero Club Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL) to Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW87LA202
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N6895J
- Operator
- B P Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL), Fort Collins, COTo Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW), Fort Worth, 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 · 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, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bridgeport, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ENGINE QUIT DURING CRUISE FLIGHT AT 5500 FEET MSL BUT RESTARTED WHEN THE PILOT SWITCHED FUEL TANKS. HE THEN HEADED FOR THE NEAREST AIRPORT WHICH WAS AT BRIDGEPORT, TX. WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH FOR LANDING THE ENGINE STOPPED AGAIN AND WOULD NOT RESTART. A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE IN A HAY FIELD ABOUT A HALF MILE NORTH OF THE AIRPORT. THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH A LARGE BALE OF HAY DURING THE LANDING SEQUENCE. THE PILOT HAD OVERFLOWN HIS PLANNED ENROUTE REFUELING POINT DUE TO KNOWN AIRCRAFT STARTER PROBLEMS AND RELIANCE ON THE AIRCRAFT'S FUEL GAUGE READINGS WHEN HE REACHED THE PLANNED REFUELING POINT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW87LA202
- Event ID
- 20001213X31817
- Case number
- FTW87LA202
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1987-08-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 032af8ada684689739c671dc61bcb76122523e93354a0670cd5f4ceb0c3f97d2; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:46:08.560Z.