ANC06LA140 · Piper PA-12
Piper PA-12 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Clam Gulch, AK to Kenai, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06LA140
- 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-12
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-12
- 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
- N593V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Clam Gulch, AKTo Kenai, AK
- 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; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial certificated pilot departed on a Title 14, CFR Part 91, cross-country flight in a float-equipped airplane. About 15 minutes after takeoff, the engine began to lose power and then quit. The pilot made a forced landing on a small lake, but collided with trees before touchdown. The pilot said he departed with 10 gallons of fuel, and noted that the right wing fuel gauge was indicating 1/4 full. After landing, the pilot said that the right fuel gauge was still indicating 1/4 full. The following day, the pilot began to drain the fuel tanks and discovered that both wing fuel tanks were empty. He eventually drained about 2 gallons of fuel from the fuel system. The left wing fuel indicator was an original float-type rod. The right wing tank quantity indicator was installed in the airplane by a mechanic under a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC), about 4 months before the pilot purchased the airplane. The STC utilizes a "U" shaped, clear segment of plastic tubing, which functions as a visual column indicator (sight gauge) of the tank's fuel level. The installation instructions for the sight gauge include the installation of a length of fuel hose between the ends of the sight gauge, and the fuel tank outlets. The length of the hose is not specified in the STC, only stating, "as required." During a postaccident examination of the airplane by an FAA inspector, the pilot and a mechanic noted that they found an excessively long length of fuel hose between the lower sight gauge attach point, and the lower fuel tank outlet. They stated the length of hose was arched upward between the two points of attachment, allowing fuel to be trapped in the lower end of the sight gauge.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to refuel the airplane before departure, which resulted in fuel exhaustion, and a total loss of engine power during cruise flight. Factors contributing to the accident were an inaccurate fuel tank indication on one of the two fuel tanks, and the improper modification of the fuel tank indicator by maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06LA140
- Event ID
- 20060928X01425
- Case number
- ANC06LA140
- 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 2006-09-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2a80911ed2a874255445c9f735800e282871a1d5311bcfc056d8363f37c19f9b; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:25:37.156Z.