ATL02LA046 · Aero Commander 500U
Aero Commander 500U · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Western Carolina Regional Airport (RHP) to Barwick Lafayette Airport (9A5)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02LA046
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Aero Commander 500U
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 500
- 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
- N441WW
- Operator
- Gary Lynn Gadberry
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Western Carolina Regional Airport (RHP), Andrews, NCTo Barwick Lafayette Airport (9A5), Lafayette, GA
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness heard the airplane's engines make "sputtering" engine noises that cut out and quit prior to its impact with the wooded terrain. A sheriff's deputy who responded to the scene heard the pilot state the airplane ran out of fuel. The propeller blades of both engines displayed minor damage, and both propeller spinners were found intact and in place. No evidence of fuel odor nor fuel leakage was observed at the accident site. During examination, both engines were supplied fuel and a source of electricity. Each engine operated smoothly during testing at rpm ranging from idle to 1900.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight planning, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion and a subsequent collision with trees during emergency landing on unsuitable terrain
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02LA046
- Event ID
- 20020219X00230
- Case number
- ATL02LA046
- 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, coordinates. 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: a52cde74d90b1638a775cf5d14e1b9cb211c8c6aa23d3462e81bb2b77b7ab91e; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:41:58.498Z.