NYC03LA051 · Piper PA-31-350
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Manhattan Regional Airport (MHK) to Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03LA051
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N130CM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Manhattan Regional Airport (MHK), Manhattan, KSTo Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK), Cincinnati, OH
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- 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
According to the pilot, he planned the estimated the 726 statute mile flight would take approximately 3 hours and 46 minutes, with one stop to pick up cargo. The available fuel for the flight was 182 gallons, which equaled an approximate 4 hour and 55 minutes endurance, assuming a 40 gallon per hour fuel burn. The flight proceeded uneventfully to the first stop; the airplane was not fueled, and it departed. As the flight neared the destination airport, the pilot began to get nervous because the main tanks were "going fast." He switched to the auxiliary fuel tanks, to "get all of the fuel out of them," and switched back to the main tanks. While executing an approach to the airport, the pilot advised the approach controller that he had lost power to the right engine, and then shortly thereafter, reported losing power to the left engine. The pilot elected to perform a forced landing to a railroad yard. After touching down, the left wing struck a four-foot high dirt mound, and separated from the main fuselage. The airplane came to rest upright on a railroad track. The pilot additionally stated that the loss of power to both engines was due to fuel exhaustion, and poor fuel planning.
Probable cause
The pilot's inaccurate in-flight planning and fuel consumption calculations, and his improper decision not to land and refuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03LA051
- Event ID
- 20030226X00261
- Case number
- NYC03LA051
- 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: 2a08c68711a3f6e4d780eb50d278b3e46cfcfb4c430e019554047b32368b46f8; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:54:51.097Z.