WPR09FA102 · SIAI-Marchetti SF-260C
SIAI-Marchetti SF-260C · Accident: fuel starvation during takeoff
From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) to Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09FA102
- 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
SIAI-Marchetti SF-260C
- Aircraft type
- Siai Marchetti SF-260
- 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
- N688C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, CATo Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, 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
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses observed the airplane climb normally after takeoff until reaching an altitude between 200 to 400 feet, then the engine sound stopped. The airplane appeared to slow down as it made a right turn followed by a descending spin until impacting the runway. The main wing tanks had been topped off about 1 week before the accident by another pilot. The pilot reported that he taxied the airplane to the hangar with the fuel selector valve in the right tip fuel tank position per standard operating procedures for the airplane. The pilot stated that a small amount of fuel was in the tip tank; however, the exact quantity was not able to be determined. Postaccident on-site examination of the wreckage revealed that the fuel tank selector valve handle appeared to be in the right tip fuel tank position. Based on detailed examination of the selector, and the nature of the cockpit structure deformation, it was later determined that the fuel tank selector valve was out of its detent and was actually between the Right Tip Tank and the Both Tip Tank selections. The fuel tank selector was probably moved out of the selector detent as a result of the crushing forces and structural deformation around the selector handle during the impact sequence. The fuel tank selector valve assembly was disassembled and found to be operational. The approved airplane flight manual for the airplane indicated that the selector valve should be positioned on the left wing tank for starting. Both the manual and the placards on the instrument panel stated that the use of “Tip Tank” and “both Tips” is limited to level flight only. The airframe and engine were examined with no mechanical anomalies identified.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to select the proper fuel tank for takeoff, which resulted in a loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while attempting a return to runway maneuver.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09FA102
- Event ID
- 20090128X04223
- Case number
- WPR09FA102
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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 2009-01-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 192598df1bd8086e162318b579f7c9f4e89ab8b9644481165a60cb7574646199; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:55:48.589Z.