NYC06LA064 · Piper PA-28-161
Advantage Aero Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Cape May County Airport (WWD) to Lancaster Airport (LNS)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06LA064
- 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-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N9183Y
- Operator
- Advantage Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape May County Airport (WWD), Wildwood, NJTo Lancaster Airport (LNS), Lancaster, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, improper
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
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 was last fueled 1.4 hours prior to the accident flight. The pilot then flew for approximately 3 hours with the left fuel tank selected. When the airplane was approximately 12 miles from the destination airport, the airplane's engine lost power. The pilot attempted to restart the engine unsuccessfully, and then performed a forced landing to a field, during which the airplane impacted a barn. Examination of the airplane revealed the fuel tanks were ruptured, and no fuel was observed in the main fuel line from the firewall to the fuel pump, or the fuel line from the fuel pump to the carburetor. No mechanical anomalies were identified with the engine or airplane. According to the Piper PA-28-161 Pilot Operating Handbook, the airplane burned approximately 8.5 gallons per hour at a 75 percent power setting. The total fuel capacity was 48 useable gallons.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper pre-flight planning and improper fuel consumption calculations, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06LA064
- Event ID
- 20060203X00163
- Case number
- NYC06LA064
- 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: 4372e2df0176d807058af74f63b7f7cbdc61119c0c3a26b59b7a93848bebcb5b; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:00:26.881Z.