ERA09LA532 · Ryan Navion
Ryan Navion · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Quonset State Airport (OQU) to Cape May County Airport (WWD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA532
- 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
Ryan Navion
- Aircraft type
- Ryan NAVION
- 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
- N4467K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Quonset State Airport (OQU), Kingstown, RITo Cape May County Airport (WWD), Wildwood, NJ
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the airplane was equipped with three fuel tanks: one main tank in each wing and an auxiliary tank in the fuselage. Each tank had a capacity of approximately 20 gallons. Prior to his departure, the pilot filled the auxiliary fuel tank and determined that there was a total of approximately 25 gallons in the main tanks. During cruise, about 55 minutes into the cross-country flight, the pilot decided to switch from the main wing tanks to the auxiliary tank. In accordance with the normal operating procedure, the pilot first turned on the fuel boost pump and then switched the fuel selector valve to the auxiliary tank. Very shortly thereafter the engine lost all power. The pilot immediately switched the fuel selector valve back to the main tanks. Although all controls were set properly, the engine did not resume developing power and the pilot’s restart attempts were unsuccessful. The pilot then executed a forced landing on a nearby beach. Postaccident examination and testing revealed that the cork gasket in the fuel strainer was deteriorated, did not provide a proper seal, and allowed air to be introduced into the fuel system when the selector valve was switched to the auxiliary tank. The investigation could not determine the age of the gasket or whether it was the correct part. The airplane had accumulated about 5 hours in service since the fuel selector valve was replaced, and the airplane had not been flown using fuel from the auxiliary tank since the valve replacement.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during cruise flight due to fuel starvation as a result of a deteriorated fuel gasket.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA532
- Event ID
- 20090921X50947
- Case number
- ERA09LA532
- 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, 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: f85bf409ca33dce94bf2b4c8330df8aa926f3f80a703a51f39b4085dff78ece2; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:19:56.721Z.