CHI01LA045 · Larson AERO COMP-6 AERO COMP-
Larson AERO COMP-6 AERO COMP- · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Jackson Field (MN17) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA045
- 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
Larson AERO COMP-6 AERO COMP-
- Aircraft type
- Larson AERO COMP-6
- 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
- N4334Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson Field (MN17)To 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane nosed over during a forced landing. The pilot reported that he replaced the fuel sensors and calibrated the fuel system with the tailwheel on the ground. He also "stick measured" the amount of fuel in each tank. He then departed on the flight with 26 gallons of fuel on board with the fuel gauges indicating just under half full. Approximately 30 minutes after departure he noticed the fuel gauges were reading low. He reported he was not alarmed as he thought they were erroneous and that he would need to recalibrate the fuel system with the tailwheel in a flight attitude. Approximately 10 minutes later, the engine began to lose power. A forced landing was made in a snow covered hay field during which the airplane nosed over. Examination of the airplane revealed fuel exhaustion as a result of fuel siphoning due to a loose fuel cap.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight of the airplane which resulted in fuel exhaustion. Factors associated with the accident were the loose fuel cap and the snow covered terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA045
- Event ID
- 20010103X00006
- Case number
- CHI01LA045
- 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: 58fe21eb8ec1d85acb81a4f31ded7abcabbac8a7cf00684e262006def28fd4d2; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:17:35.771Z.