CHI03FA047 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Watertown Municipal Airport (RYV) to Schaumburg Regional Airport (06C)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03FA047
- 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
- N74AA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Watertown Municipal Airport (RYV), Watertown, WITo Schaumburg Regional Airport (06C), Schaumburg, IL
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was substantially damaged during a forced landing following a loss of power in both engines during cruise flight. The pilot reported one engine sputtered. He stated he switched fuel tanks and verified the mixture was full rich. Shortly thereafter the other engine also sputtered. At this point, the pilot stated that he setup for a forced landing into a small field. However, he overshot his intended touchdown point and impacted trees adjacent to the field. Prior to departure, the pilot stated he requested FBO line service personnel top off the inboard main fuel tanks. He also reported he verified that the fuel tank caps were present and secure, but he did not remove any of the fuel caps to visually check fuel quantity. The FBO line service personnel who fueled the aircraft stated the pilot requested that the outboard fuel tanks be topped off. During an interview, when questioned about the configuration of the fuel cap, he reported the tanks he fueled had standard, twist-off caps. The aircraft was configured with 3 fuel tanks in each wing, the production inboard and outboard main tanks and the auxiliary wing tip tanks. The inboard and outboard main tanks were configured with a sub-flush fuel cap that was covered by a small, hinged panel. The auxiliary tank fuel cap was a standard, twist-off type. This cap protruded above the wing contour and was not covered by a secondary panel. During the on-scene investigation, the inboard main fuel tanks were empty. The outboard main tanks contained fuel, however an exact amount could not be determined. Both wing tip tanks were separated and ruptured. An examination of each engine was completed. The fuel flow divider units for both engines were disassembled and did not contain any fluid. The diaphragms were intact. No other anomolies were noted.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management, which resulted in fuel starvation. An inadequate preflight inspection and the trees encountered during the forced landing were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03FA047
- Event ID
- 20030110X00052
- Case number
- CHI03FA047
- 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: ab8bc80766131437668ca08277d0b790ee7512d0cafe0b7d36d54c9a3ef380f6; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:42:36.419Z.