MIA07LA152 · Piper PA-30
Piper PA-30 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From M16 · Raymond, MS to Destin Executive Airport (KDTS)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07LA152
- 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-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N8751Y
- Operator
- Ronald C. Smith · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M16 · Raymond, MSTo Destin Executive Airport (KDTS), Destin, 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 · descent
- 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 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 › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before takeoff an individual other than the pilot "sticked" each fuel tank for quantity, but the stick had not been calibrated. The pilot estimated that he had 60-65 gallons of fuel on-board for the intended 1 hour 20 minute flight. After takeoff the flight climbed to 5,500 feet, where he positioned each fuel selector to the auxiliary position. The flight continued and while descending when near the destination airport, both engines lost power due to fuel starvation. The pilot repositioned both fuel selectors to each main position, which restored engine power. He notified air traffic control, who vectored the flight to a military grass landing strip. With both engines developing power, the pilot landed to the east but touched down approximately 3,725 feet past the western edge of the grass field. The airplane collided with a fence and came to rest upright approximately 1,200 feet from the first touchdown point. Examination of the airplane revealed 14.75 gallons of fuel drained from the left fuel tanks, and 3.0 gallons of fuel drained from the right fuel tanks. No fuel leakage was noted.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to attain the proper touchdown point during the precautionary landing resulting in the on-ground collision with fence posts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07LA152
- Event ID
- 20070924X01431
- Case number
- MIA07LA152
- 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: d1115fdf33334a979649b0ddae082bf0d09a31a06cc4cbe5cbd3b3c7bbdd6ae4; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:25:00.099Z.