CEN09LA171 · Piper PA-28C-235
9487W Piper PA-28C-235 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From 00V · Falcon, CO to 00V · Falcon, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA171
- 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-28C-235
- 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
- N9487W
- Operator
- 9487W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 00V · Falcon, COTo 00V · Falcon, CO
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
The pilot said that he preflighted the airplane and noted the following fuel gauge indications: Left tip tank, 6 gallons (17 gallon capacity); left main tank, 12-15 gallons (25 gallon capacity); right main tank, 5-10 gallons (25 gallon capacity); right tip tank, empty (17 gallon capacity). The pilot and a friend flew for about 1.5 hours then returned to the airport. While on short final approach, the engine lost power. The airplane touched down in a field 200 to 300 feet short of the runway and struck a barbed wire fence. The airplane sustained leading edge damage to both wings and damage to the left main tank. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector examined the airplane and reported finding the fuel selector positioned on the left main fuel tank. He found fuel in the fuel selector drain and in the left main fuel tank drain. There was a negligible amount of fuel in the right main tank fuel drain. The left wing tip tank contained approximately 3 to 5 gallons, and the right wing tip tank contained approximately 2 to 4 gallons. With the fuel selector positioned on the left main tank, the engine was started and allowed to run for approximately 5 minutes. The fuel selector was then positioned on the left wing tip tank and the engine was allowed to run for another 5 minutes. The fuel selector was then positioned on the right wing tip tank, and the engine continued to run. The fuel selector was positioned on the right main tank and approximately one to two minutes later the engine stopped running. According to a Piper Aircraft Company spokesman, the airplane's engine, operating at 7000 feet mean sea level and 75 percent power, will consume about 14 gallons per hour.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot's inadequate fuel management.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA171
- Event ID
- 20090222X63601
- Case number
- CEN09LA171
- 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: investigation status. 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: 650d0748461de5328baf2f4e87af05f1f4619a10d19d0d3b4bda782f7d8b2934; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:46:12.390Z.