NYC05FA053 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From York Airport (THV) to 40N · Coatesville, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC05FA053
- 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
- 2 · 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-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N2343Z
- Operator
- Richard Simons
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From York Airport (THV), York, PATo 40N · Coatesville, PA
- 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 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 › Remedial action, 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 took off from his home airport, and flew to an airport approximately 1 hour away. Prior to his return flight, he fueled the twin-engine airplane with 20 gallons of fuel, with 10 gallons added to each outboard fuel tank. About 45 minutes after departing the intermediate airport, witnesses observed the airplane on final approach to the pilot's home airport. During the approach, the airplane made a "hard left turn," and impacted a field. One witness reported hearing "at least one engine running," and another witness reported hearing the airplane's engine "throttle, and then no throttle, and throttle again," prior to the impact. Post-accident examination of the airplane revealed that both the right inboard and right outboard fuel tanks were ruptured; however, more than 15 gallons of fuel was drained from the right wing. The right fuel selector valve and handle were selected to the "inboard" position, and the right engine propeller blades displayed rotational signatures. Both the left inboard and left outboard fuel tanks remained intact. The outboard tank contained a "trace" amount of fuel, and the inboard tank contained about 10 gallons of fuel. The left engine fuel selector valve was selected to the outboard tank, and no fuel was observed in the fuel line from the left engine fuel pump to the fuel servo. A "trace" amount of fuel was observed in the left engine fuel distributor, as well as the regulator section of the fuel servo. In addition, the left engine propeller revealed no rotational signatures and was not in the feathered position. No pre-impact mechanical anomalies were noted with either the airplane or the engines. The procedure outlined in the pilot operating handbook, for a loss of engine power in flight, called for the pilot to feather the propeller of the failed engine, to reduce the yaw that would occur in the direction of that engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate remedial action during an engine failure, which resulted in a loss of airplane control. A factor was the pilot's improper fuel management, which resulted in fuel starvation to one engine, and its subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC05FA053
- Event ID
- 20050315X00313
- Case number
- NYC05FA053
- 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: 94d29161db1c479caaab1cf151a1aabe5a90215f9b89fd06dba9b2f36f41168c; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:06:23.825Z.