NYC08FA020 · Piper PA-28-181
Kemper Aviation Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA) to Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08FA020
- 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
- 2 · 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-28-181
- 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
- N8155C
- Operator
- Kemper Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), West Palm Beach, FLTo Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), Boynton Beach, 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
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Dual student › Fuel management, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Fuel management, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly before the end of a planned 2-hour night instructional instrument flight, at an altitude of about 1,000 feet above the ground, the airplane’s engine lost power. The certificated flight instructor directed the certificated private pilot to perform a forced landing to a golf course, but while on final approach the airplane impacted trees and cartwheeled. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the right fuel tank was intact but empty. The left fuel tank was breached but contained approximately 6 gallons of fuel, and an accident site soil analysis indicated a fuel spill of approximately 20 to 30 gallons. The electric fuel pump switch was found in the “on” position and the fuel selector valve was found with right fuel tank selected. Performance data indicated that the flight would have consumed approximately 25 gallons, or about half of the total fuel on board when the airplane took off. The surviving passenger reported that after the loss of engine power, both pilots were concentrating on finding a suitable landing spot, which was difficult due to the darkness, rather than troubleshooting the loss of engine power. The pilot operating handbook states that any time fuel starvation is suspected during flight, the fuel selector should immediately be positioned to the other tank and the electric fuel pump switched to the “on” position.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilots' improper in-flight fuel management.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08FA020
- Event ID
- 20071119X01804
- Case number
- NYC08FA020
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-10-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6e9d973ad0c60493876ab07ba89c9109ca4c3c983be8311892471000ba4ae779; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:09:28.381Z.