DEN03LA026 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during an emergency descent
From Blanding Municipal Airport (BDG) to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03LA026
- 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-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
- N75337
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blanding Municipal Airport (BDG), Blanding, UTTo Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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
- Emergency 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
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed, with full fuel tanks, to visit family members for Christmas. During his return trip aircraft preflight, he visually checked the fuel tanks and fuel gauges. "One registered just under 20 gallons and the other 15 gallons." He did not take on additional fuel before departure. The pilot said the engine lost power approximately half way home. He said he enriched the mixture, activated the electric fuel pump, and switched fuel tanks. The engine's power increased. The pilot said he decided to head toward Spanish Fork Canyon. Shortly thereafter, with the Spanish Fork Airport in sight, the engine again lost power. The pilot performed a forced landing to an open field. During the landing roll, the airplane nosed over. Postaccident examination of the terrain revealed that it was frozen hard. An FAA inspector retrieved approximately 1/4 cup of fuel from one fuel tank, and he reported the other tank was empty. The inspector also said the fuel strainers were clean, but dry.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight planning and preparation and his in-flight decision/planning resulting in fuel exhaustion. A contributing factor was the rough, frozen terrain at the landing site.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03LA026
- Event ID
- 20030106X00016
- Case number
- DEN03LA026
- 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: c861f9773c849f66837a28613f633314ea70676a2dd66d9e344edf262cfd39e8; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:32:23.778Z.