LAX07CA232 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Felts Field (SFF) to Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07CA232
- 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-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N919CA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Felts Field (SFF), Felts Field, WATo Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Rogue Valley, OR
- 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
- 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 › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, 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 airplane collided with terrain during a forced landing in an open field. The pilot visually confirmed both fuel tanks were full prior to takeoff by looking into the tank and observing fuel at the filler neck level. During cruise the pilot adjusted the fuel/air mixture using the exhaust gas temperature (EGT) gauge as a reference. Every 30 minutes during the flight, the pilot switched fuel tanks in order to attain an even fuel burn. About 3 hours 40 minutes into the flight the engine lost all power. The pilot switched fuel tanks, and the power was restored. Concerned that the other tank may also have been low on fuel, he elected to divert to an airport in the immediate vicinity. He flew an additional 10 minutes and the engine again lost all power. The pilot made an emergency landing in an open field and the airplane sustained substantial damage. A local law enforcement officer, who responded to the accident site, visually verified that there was no fuel in either fuel tank.
Probable cause
Fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's inadequate fuel consumption calculations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07CA232
- Event ID
- 20070928X01472
- Case number
- LAX07CA232
- 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: 464039e9fe8d004e8ca0eb7874c2504e54b44bc7b7b78ecb6a3ff6f4492b662a; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:25:51.028Z.