CHI07CA057 · Barron Thorp T18
Barron Thorp T18 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Moore County Airport (SOP) to 29G · Ravenna, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07CA057
- 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
Barron Thorp T18
- Aircraft type
- Barron THORP T18
- 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
- N54DT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Moore County Airport (SOP), Southern Pines, NCTo 29G · Ravenna, OH
- 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; 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- 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 airplane impacted trees and terrain during a forced landing following a loss of engine power during approach. The pilot stated that the airplane lost engine power due to "a depletion of fuel." The pilot attempted to land in a plowed field but reported not having sufficient altitude to clear trees at the field's edge. The pilot stated that he "stalled the airplane into the top of the trees." The pilot reported the airplane then fell approximately forty feet to the ground in a nose down attitude. Inspection of airplane revealed that the fuel system did not contain any remaining usable fuel. The fuel system was intact and no fuel smell was noted at the accident site. The pilot reported that the accident flight was three hours and eight minutes in duration. The pilot stated that the airplane had 29 gallons of fuel on board at departure. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight decision not to refuel prior to fuel exhaustion. A factor to the accident was the tree line that the airplane impacted during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07CA057
- Event ID
- 20070202X00130
- Case number
- CHI07CA057
- 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: 32ee21cca055c28f19a3a4d0c972537f1e194addd97ff167f1c16ec438fad7ed; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:51:52.583Z.