FTW85LA250 · Piper PA-31-350
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE) to Dallas Love Field (DAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW85LA250
- 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N7697L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE), St. Petersburg, FLTo Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, 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
- 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 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
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Wheels up landing, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT FILED AND FLT PLANNED FOR AN OVERWATER ROUTE BETWEEN CLEARWATER, FL, AND DALLAS, TX, WHICH WAS DENIED DUE TO ATC RESTRICTIONS. ON ARRIVAL OVER NEW ORLEANS, A PLANNED RE-FUELING STOP, THE PLT DETERMINED THAT HE WOULD MAKE IT TO DALLAS. ON ARRIVAL IN THE DALLAS AREA, HE ESTIMATED THAT HE COULD NOT MAKE LOVE FIELD (DAL) AND DIVERTED TO REDBIRD ARPT (RDB). ON BASE, BOTH ENGS QUIT DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION. THE ACFT WAS LANDED LONG WITH THE GEAR AND FLAPS UP AND SLID OFF THE END OF THE RWY. PLT OVERFLEW AT LEAST 1 ARPT AFTER HE DECIDED TO DIVERT TO RDB.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW85LA250
- Event ID
- 20001214X36786
- Case number
- FTW85LA250
- 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: 5714ba92545bf6c4f670bb837d9dbcb384a9df6404019f0dda8a3438feb4f34e; retrieved 2026-09-23T17:22:35.771Z.