ATL03TA078 · Aero Commander 500S
Aero Commander 500S · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From 8S5 · Mount Pleasant, SC to 8S5 · Mount Pleasant, SC
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03TA078
- 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 500S
- 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
- N19WL
- Operator
- John William Madden
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 8S5 · Mount Pleasant, SCTo 8S5 · Mount Pleasant, SC
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Airport personnel › Refueling, improper
- Fluid, fuel grade › Incorrect
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 requested the refueler to top off his fuel tanks with "100 low lead fuel". After refueling, the pilot performed a preflight including taking fuel samples from under the wings, draining the rear fuel drain, and checking the fuel cap for security. The engine start, run-up, and taxi were uneventful. The airplane departed runway 17 and was in a positive rate of climb. At approximately 200 feet AGL the airplane began to lose power. Shortly after the pilot ensured that the throttle, propeller, and mixture controls were in the full forward position, the airplane lost power in both engines. The pilot executed an emergency off field landing. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the left wing had broken off and the aft cabin area was crushed. According to the refueler, he stated that he mistakenly used the Jet-A fuel truck instead of the AVGAS 100 low lead truck, and pumped 58 gallons of Jet-A into the airplane. Examination of the fuel samples taken from both engines revealed the left and right engine contained 70 percent of jet A fuel.
Probable cause
The improper refueling of the airplane by airport personnel with the incorrect fuel grade that resulted in a total loss in engine power on both engines during initial climb. A factor was the inadequate preflight inspection by the pilot in command.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03TA078
- Event ID
- 20030416X00520
- Case number
- ATL03TA078
- 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: 149c3eb0853626142600196a787d5b50776b96f0782773a42857830fd1c4e53f; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:29:02.959Z.