LAX03LA127 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From General William J Fox Airfield (WJF) to San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA127
- 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
- N21175
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General William J Fox Airfield (WJF), Lancaster, CATo San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP), San Luis Obispo, CA
- 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
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While making an emergency landing on a road, the airplane struck a pole and a chain link fence. The pilot reported he had made a 2-hour flight and stopped to refuel. The airplane was refueled, and departed with 48 gallons of fuel. The pilot then departed for the next airport, where he landed, recalculated his fuel, and filed an IFR flight plan. He estimated his remaining fuel at 31 gallons, and left the interim airport without refueling. He estimated that he had 3.5 hours of fuel on board for the last leg of the flight. About 1.5 hours into the flight, the engine lost all power. The pilot diverted to a closer airport, but was too low to reach the airport, and made an emergency landing on a road. First responders reported finding no fuel on board the airplane, or in the surrounding area of the airplane. According to the manufacturer, the airplane holds a total of 50 gallons of fuel; 48 gallons are usable, with 24 gallons in each wing.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision resulting in fuel exhaustion which resulted in a total loss of engine power during cruise flight, and a subsequent on-ground collision with a pole and a fence during the ensuing emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA127
- Event ID
- 20030422X00546
- Case number
- LAX03LA127
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-04-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5f1c40d2e179cc38d97df9ead86dfbefebae1e55ef5ffb7ab99858f136e98fbb; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:26:15.821Z.