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NYC07LA138 · Piper PA38 112

9 Jun 2007 · Jacksonville, FL, United States

Piper PA38 112 · Accident: loss of engine power en route

From Herlong Airport (HEG) to Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (CRG)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC07LA138
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 PA38 112

Aircraft type
Piper PA38
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
N193BA
Operator
Doug Lundeen
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Herlong Airport (HEG), Jacksonville, FLTo Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (CRG), Jacksonville, FL
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
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
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, inadequate

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot departed his home airport and flew to a nearby airport (a 10 minute flight), where he performed three touch-and-go landings. About 5 minutes into the return flight, the airplane's engine began to "cough and sputter," and then lost power. The pilot attempted, unsuccessfully, to restart the engine, and then performed a forced landing to a beach, during which the airplane was substantially damaged. The accident flight was the second flight since the pilot completed an annual inspection on the airplane. Prior to the annual inspection, the airplane was not flown for 14 years. The airplane was last refueled on the morning of the accident with 20 gallons of fuel, and was then flown for approximately 90 minutes, prior to the accident flight. Examination of the airplane revealed five gallons of fuel in the right fuel tank, and the left fuel tank was empty. No fuel was observed in the input line to the fuel pump, the output line from the fuel pump, or the gascolator. The airplane's fuel consumption was between 7 to 10 gallons per hour.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to perform adequate pre-flight fuel consumption calculations, which resulted in a loss of power due to fuel starvation.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC07LA138
Event ID
20070628X00843
Case number
NYC07LA138
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: 81c6de2e12887e2f6a4bc7156e5a7efb7cb9277b5d23166afe1ab831c18f244c; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:46:24.479Z.