SEA07LA254 · Piper PA-46-350P
Piper PA-46-350P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Corona Municipal Airport (AJO) to Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA254
- 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-46-350P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N6070X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Corona Municipal Airport (AJO), Corona, CATo Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not selected
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, 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 pilot initially reported that he departed with 6 gallons of fuel in the left tank and 16 gallons in the right tank. In a later statement he said the left tank contained 9 gallons and the right tank 20 gallons. As the airplane climbed through 500 feet, the engine sputtered and subsequently lost power. The pilot pitched the airplane for best glide and turned back to the airport. He attempted an engine restart with no success, then executed a forced landing to a construction site. The airplane touched down in rough terrain and the landing gear sheared off. Additionally, the left wing was bent up at the wing root, and the fuselage was wrinkled. When the salvage personnel recovered the airplane, they drained 16 gallons of fuel from the right wing and 1 cup of fuel from the left wing. Examination of the airplane found the fuel tanks intact and the fuel lines not compromised. Additionally, no fuel was found in the entire engine fuel system forward of the fuel selector.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation as a result of the pilot's fuel system mismanagement and failure to select a tank containing fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA254
- Event ID
- 20070924X01436
- Case number
- SEA07LA254
- 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: 0a21839b4ae79fb838e4e0d11bc9fe362a00322ef963c8c079b7fe7536831d4b; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:26:50.219Z.