DFW05FA028 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Houma Terrebonne Airport (HUM) to Hammond Northshore Regional Airport (HDC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05FA028
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N4750L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houma Terrebonne Airport (HUM), Houma, LATo Hammond Northshore Regional Airport (HDC), Hammond, LA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, 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 87-hour non-instrument rated private pilot departed on the return portion of a 58.7 nautical mile cross country flight at night in marginal VFR weather conditions, which included five miles visibility in mist and an overcast ceiling at 500 feet. As the pilot approached his destination airport, a witness who was an automobile mechanic, heard the airplane flying low overhead from south to north. Although he could not see the airplane, he said that it was flying "low" and that the engine sounded "good." Shortly after the airplane flew over his house, the engine started to "miss out" as if it was "starving for fuel." Examination of the airplane revealed that the cockpit, forward fuselage, and the inboard section of the left wing, including the fuel tank were consumed by post-impact fire. However, the right wing, including the fuel tank were undamaged. The fuel selector was found set to the right fuel tank position. No mechanical deficiencies were noted with the airplane or the engine that could have prevented normal operations.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the pilot's in-flight mismanagement of the available fuel supply by his failure to switch fuel tank position, which resulted in fuel starvation. Factors were the low ceilings and the prevailing dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05FA028
- Event ID
- 20041214X01984
- Case number
- DFW05FA028
- 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 2004-12-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 286b0f54d4e95a23f5c6b8923f0fe7c361c4a43ae75c7da2d290aa3925a7b809; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:11:07.687Z.