CEN09CA593 · Linke KR-2
Linke KR-2 · Accident: fuel exhaustion on approach
From Emporia Municipal Airport (EMP) to Mount Vernon Outland Airport (MVN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA593
- 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
Linke KR-2
- Aircraft type
- Linke KR-2
- 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
- N4207Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Emporia Municipal Airport (EMP), Emporia, KSTo Mount Vernon Outland Airport (MVN), Mt. Vernon, IL
- 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
- 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 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was en route to the destination airport when the airplane's fuel indicating rod became stuck in the full position, which it had done on previous occasions. The pilot determined, based upon his calculations, that he would have enough fuel to complete the flight. During approach to the airport, the engine experienced a total loss of power, and the pilot executed a forced landing on a bean field. During the landing, the airplane hit trees and impacted the field resulting in substantial damage to the airplane. The pilot sustained minor injuries. There was no usable fuel aboard the airplane. The pilot stated that he miscalculated the fuel consumption during the flight and failed to make a precautionary landing when the fuel indicating rod became stuck.
Probable cause
The inadequate preflight planning/preparation and fuel management by the pilot which led to fuel exhaustion and a total loss of engine power during approach. Contributing to the accident was the inoperative fuel indicator.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA593
- Event ID
- 20090918X11241
- Case number
- CEN09CA593
- 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 2009-09-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 39b682fda3ed8b827dbd5b6385948f2cc8fdefba50e795a98cc58a9734d995a9; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:19:16.353Z.