CHI06LA051 · Piper PA-31-350
Midwest Aviation Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Guymon Municipal Airport (GUY) to Southwest Minnesota Regional Airport - Marshall/Ryan Field (MML)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06LA051
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N711HG
- Operator
- Midwest Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Guymon Municipal Airport (GUY), Guymon, OKTo Southwest Minnesota Regional Airport - Marshall/Ryan Field (MML), Marshall, MN
- 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
- 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
- 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 consumption calculations, 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 twin-engine airplane on a non-scheduled domestic passenger repositioning flight, sustained substantial damage on impact with snow covered terrain during a forced landing following an in-flight loss of engine power from both engines on approach. The outboards tanks were the only tanks requested by the pilot to be refuled prior to departure. An on-scene examination revealed that the airplane's tanks exhibited no fuel. No pre-impact anomalies were detected with the airplane.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power in both engines while on approach due to fuel exhaustion and the pilot's inaccurate fuel consumption calculations leading to him refueling the outboard tanks only.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06LA051
- Event ID
- 20051227X02018
- Case number
- CHI06LA051
- 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 2005-12-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2abb10a0101ee7e00e8760d46b0b1bd14a1401e35666ef65a12602ec2554c38c; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:50:50.080Z.