ATL04CA091 · Piper PA-28R-200
Dillon Aviation Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY) to Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04CA091
- 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-28R-200
- 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
- N32891
- Operator
- Dillon Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY), Fayetteville, NCTo Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY), Fayetteville, NC
- 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 starvation
- 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(cfi) › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor was conducting an instrument training flight with a private pilot. The engine start, run up, and flight was conducted on the right main fuel tank. The airplane was flown for 2 hours and 4 minutes. While being vectored by an air traffic controller for an NDB approach the airplane experienced a loss of engine power. The flight instructor did not use the check list for the loss of engine power. The fuel selector was not moved to the left main fuel tank. An emergency was declared with the controller and a forced landing was made to an open field. The airplane collided with trees on landing roll out. Examination of the right main fuel tank revealed the fuel tank was empty. The left wing separated during the accident and fuel was observed by emergency personnel dripping from the fuel tank. When the pilot was asked what may have caused the loss of engine power, he stated, "fuel starvation." Examination and partial disassembly of the engine revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's improper fuel management resulting in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. A factor was the flight instructor's failure to use the checklist.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04CA091
- Event ID
- 20040511X00586
- Case number
- ATL04CA091
- 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 2004-04-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 63f624abe8ac8632f51a95b4b1935eb1d0c2fdb8b4778745239349bb16779ed8; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:15:30.506Z.