CHI04CA106 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident en route
From Mason Jewett Field (TEW) to Captain Ben Smith Airfield - Monroe City Airport (K52)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04CA106
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N40RT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mason Jewett Field (TEW), Mason, MITo Captain Ben Smith Airfield - Monroe City Airport (K52), Monroe City, MO
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane sustained substantial damage on impact with terrain during a precautionary landing. The pilot reported that he checked weather, filed a flight plan, performed a preflight, and verified that both tanks were full. The pilot stated that the first fuel tank switch was completed 12 minutes after departure and the remaining tank switches were completed on 15 to 17 minute balanced intervals. The pilot stated that he over flew his destination and turned around toward a known city. The pilot stated, "The left tank ran out of fuel, and, I reacted automatically & immediately turned on the electric fuel pump then switched from the left to the right tank - the engine fired up right away. I thought about issuing a May-Day call, but, decided not to because [Air Traffic Control] lost radar contact with me at 4000ft, and, I was at 3500. I did not want to waste fuel climbing or waste time to set up radios and communicate -started thinking about my aviate, navigate, communicate priorities. I had the radial to track back to a known airport location, Hannibal, but, I began to doubt if I had the fuel to get there. This logic hinged on the fact that I had been religious about keeping the tanks balanced. If I had emptied the left, regardless of why it emptied prematurely, the right tank should be no more than 15 minutes behind it. Figured Hannibal was at least 15 minutes out with Monroe City closer, but, neither in view. To greatly compound matters, the sun was well on its way to setting. Guessed I might have no more than 5 or 10 minutes of light left. Scanned around again for an airport - none found. Started looking for a place to make an emergency landing. ... Decided to go with my 1st choice pasture/hay field with known surface. Next, thought I heard a burp from the engine as the field approached. This made it easier to commit to the precautionary landing. ... The field was not long enough, though. I rolled into scrub brush and a barbed wire fence with metal fence posts." The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions associated with the airplane in reference to the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot inadvertently became lost and over flew his destination in cruise flight and selected an unsuitable landing area for his precautionary landing. Factors were the rough/uneven terrain, the barbed wire fence, and the fence post encountered during the precautionary landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04CA106
- Event ID
- 20040427X00515
- Case number
- CHI04CA106
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-04-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9628d62c82db80be4e7e65c547cea8cb4cebd70966892b694ec1efa0a18e3f67; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:44:03.500Z.