CHI05LA069 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Ottawa Executive Airport (Z98) to Lamar Municipal Airport (LLU)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA069
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5961P
- Operator
- Timothy J. Prantle · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ottawa Executive Airport (Z98), Zeeland, MITo Lamar Municipal Airport (LLU), Lamar, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inaccurate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane contacted trees and terrain on final approach to land following a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. The pilot reported he topped the airplane off prior to departure for the cross country flight. He stated he flew at 8,500 feet with a power setting of 2,400 rpm and 22" of manifold pressure. The pilot stated he leaned the mixture by pulling it back until the engine ran rough, then he increased the mixture until it ran smooth again. The pilot reported he became concerned about the amount of fuel on board when he noticed the "fuel gage drop" while en route. He contacted a nearby airport and inquired about obtaining fuel. The airport manager stated they did not have fuel services, but recommended another nearby airport for fuel. He reported the fuel in one of his fuel tanks was exhausted when he was about half way to the alternate airport and the other fuel tank was exhausted when he was in the traffic pattern to land. The pilot stated he miscalculated the headwind and he turned final approach too far out from the runway. He stated the airplane got too low and the right wing contacted trees just before the airplane crashed on the golf course. The airplane had been airborne for approximately 4 hours prior to the fuel exhaustion. Post accident inspection of the airplane revealed no evidence of fuel at the accident site or in either of the airplane's fuel tanks.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the pilot's inaccurate preflight and inflight planning which resulted in an inadequate fuel supply for the flight, and the subsequent fuel exhaustion. A factor associated with the accident was the trees that the airplane contacted during the landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA069
- Event ID
- 20050211X00180
- Case number
- CHI05LA069
- 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 2005-02-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6a8daa743aa6c1f176254bbd46bba4cc3fb8d63d503224e7eee405c492fb261a; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:09:59.738Z.