ATL06LA007 · North American AT-6D
North American AT-6D · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Mocksville, NC to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA007
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
North American AT-6D
- Aircraft type
- North American AT-6
- 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
- N494S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mocksville, NCTo not recorded
- 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
- Pilot in command › 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
A witness stated he observed the airplane depart to the north and climb to about 500 feet. The witness observed the airplane make a steep left 90-degree bank back towards the runway, in a slight nose down attitude. The witness then observed the nose and wings of the airplane come back to a level attitude. The witness stated the airplane appeared to be "mushing/dropping" down in a flat slight nose down attitude until it disappeared from view. Two hunters stated they observed the airplane at tree top level circling. The hunters stated the engine sounded like it was shutting down and quit. They then heard a sound like the pilot was attempting to restart the engine. The hunters lost sight of the airplane and heard it collide with the ground, followed by smoke rising above the trees. Examination of the crash site revealed the fuselage forward of the vertical stabilizer was destroyed by fire except for the outer 1/3 of the left and right wing. The right main fuel tank had been ruptured and received fire damage. The left main fuel tank was not ruptured and fire damage was present on the exterior of the fuel tank. The left fuel cap was removed and no fuel was present. The inside of the fuel tank revealed a shinny interior. The fuel selector valve was removed and a functional check revealed no anomalies. The left wing fuel sump was opened and no fuel was present. The left and right fuel selector knobs were located in the wreckage and the fuel selector handle was positioned on the right main fuel tank. Witnesses who were present when the pilot departed stated, the airplane had been topped off with 70.2 gallons of low lead fuel earlier in the day. The pilot had flown 5 flights after the airplane was refueled for 1 hour and 25 minutes before the accident. Review of Pratt and Whitney 1340-AN-1 engine operational data revealed the engine will burn 35 to 40 gallons of fuel per hour at cruise power settings. At maximum takeoff power the engine will burn up to 70 gallons of fuel per hour.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management resulting in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation and an in-flight collision with trees and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA007
- Event ID
- 20051019X01686
- Case number
- ATL06LA007
- 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: 37cd1c1032dcf10d3b7017f8b6f39d5b3ea8941fc4eaff31b5f3379c1b09c443; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:49:10.969Z.