ERA10CA002 · Piper PA-24-260
Piper PA-24-260 · Accident: fuel starvation during takeoff
From Franklin County State Airport (KFSO) to Franklin County State Airport (KFSO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10CA002
- 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-24-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N9237P
- Operator
- Robert Desmarais
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Franklin County State Airport (KFSO), Highgate, VTTo Franklin County State Airport (KFSO), Highgate, VT
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
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, he was conducting multiple 10- to 15-minute "Young Eagle" flights. After taking off on the fifth flight, and as the airplane reached 300 feet, the engine lost power. The pilot switched fuel tanks and verified that the fuel pump was on, but to no avail. He then force-landed the airplane on the departure end of the runway. However, the airplane continued off the end of the runway and through a grassy overrun for about 100 yards, until it impacted a fence, substantially damaging both wings. The pilot noted that there were two main fuel tanks and two auxiliary fuel tanks on the airplane, and that during the first four flights, he only utilized fuel from the left main tank. Prior to the fifth flight, both auxiliary tanks and the right main tank were full, and the left main tank indicated 1/4 full. The pilot initially switched fuel feed to the right main tank, but then decided to utilize the remaining fuel in the left main tank, and switched back to that tank before takeoff. Postflight examination of the left fuel tank revealed no fuel in the tank. The pilot also stated that there were no preexisting mechanical anomalies with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper fuel management which resulted in loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10CA002
- Event ID
- 20091003X52024
- Case number
- ERA10CA002
- 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: 758d5069393671f24fd315cd352ad592161e6a699fb7fef00c0e3c7700e50ab3; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:22:27.130Z.