CHI03LA211 · Quicksilver MXL II
Quicksilver MXL II · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Brookfield, MO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA211
- 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
Quicksilver MXL II
- Aircraft type
- Quicksilver MXL
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brookfield, MOTo not recorded
- 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 › Fuel supply, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft impacted the terrain following a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. The aircraft owner contacted the pilot so that he could teach him to fly his recently purchased Quicksilver. The pilot stated he saw the aircraft owner add two gallons of fuel to the aircraft prior to takeoff. The pilot departed solo in the airplane from a private airstrip and flew to a nearby airport where he performed three full stop takeoffs and landings. The aircraft owner went to the airport and boarded the airplane with the pilot. According to the pilot, they departed and flew 5 to 10 minutes prior to experiencing a loss of engine power. The pilot reported he pumped the throttle and was able to "...get fuel, but only at intermittent intervals." The pilot reported the aircraft contacted the ground as he attempted to turn in order to avoid trees. The local sheriff reported the fuel tank was clear and he was unable to see any fuel in the tank. The sheriff also reported the passenger stated to him that he felt they ran out of fuel during the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to assure an adequate fuel supply which resulted in fuel exhaustion. A factor associated with the accident was the pilot's lack of experience in this make/model of aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA211
- Event ID
- 20030718X01143
- Case number
- CHI03LA211
- 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 2003-06-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 74f8646e83b2cca896758f950aa3ae8a1f9582bc988ebec393e02f231a172945; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:26:22.074Z.