MIA05LA063 · Cessna T207A
Cessna T207A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport (F45) to F45
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05LA063
- 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
Cessna T207A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N207CC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport (F45), West Palm Beach, FLTo F45
- 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 downwind
- 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 › Fuel management, 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 pilot stated that a remanufactured engine was installed and a post installation check flight was performed for about 15 minutes in the pattern. He landed and the maintenance facility did a post flight examination of the airplane for any discrepancies; none was observed. The pilot elected to conduct a local flight to break in the engine. The pilot did an engine run up, departure, and climb to 2500 feet, where he remained for a little over one hour. While descending to traffic pattern altitude, he reduced the throttle and the engine lost power. He then placed the throttle back to full power, turned on the electric fuel pump, checked the mixture was full rich, and attempted to restart the engine several times. The pilot then realized he would not make the runway and made an off airport landing, incurring substantial damage to the airplane. When the FAA inspector and the mechanics arrived at the scene they inspected the aircraft visually for fuel and found no fuel in the right tank and 11 gallons in the left. According to the pilot the fuel selector valve was on the right tank position at the time of engine failure. Examination of the fuel lines and fuel manifold revealed little fuel. The gascolator was about half full of fuel when removed. When fuel was drained from the right header tank very little fuel was observed. The engine was examined for a propeller strike and afterwards run on a test stand; no discrepancies were noted.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate fuel management resulting in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation and subsequent impact with an embankment during an emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05LA063
- Event ID
- 20050302X00248
- Case number
- MIA05LA063
- 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: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6b3da31e8b839bb8b7322bcb4274b26df01c8e02fa02a9294dd60cf8a1be0cd7; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:15:24.629Z.