CHI03LA029 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Toledo Suburban Airport (DUH) to Y66 · Drummond Island, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA029
- 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
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N5985Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Toledo Suburban Airport (DUH), Lambertville, MITo Y66 · Drummond Island, MI
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Partial 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 management, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise descent the left engine experienced a loss of engine power and the pilot performed a forced landing on an agricultural field. The pilot stated he checked the fuel quantity gauges and the "left fuel quantity was reading 1/4 tank and the fuel selector remained on the inboard tanks because the [gauge] indicated fuel in the tank." The pilot reported that he did not secure the left engine and feather the propeller because "the [left] engine was creating some thrust and this could be needed to reach land." The aircraft was situated over Lake Huron when the left engine experienced the loss of engine power. All four fuel tanks were drained during a post-accident inspection. The two inboard fuel tanks were empty and a total of 70 gallons of fuel was recovered from the two outboard tanks. The fuel tanks were not ruptured or damaged. The left engine started and ran without anomalies when the fuel selector was positioned on the outboard tank. The pilot reported that prior to departure "all fuel tanks were topped off", totaling 144 gallons.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management during the flight and the pilot's improper decision not to select the outboard fuel tank when a loss of engine power was experienced, resulting in fuel starvation, a sustained loss of engine power, and subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA029
- Event ID
- 20021203X05548
- Case number
- CHI03LA029
- 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: 950585370bcc4887194726096f66cd155618425d2dbe0a950872e6d0fd23a950; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:53:18.308Z.