CEN10CA254 · Nelson Steven Paul WAG-AEROSPORTSMAN2+2
Nelson Steven Paul WAG-AEROSPORTSMAN2+2 · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From Milaca Municipal Airport (18Y) to Milaca Municipal Airport (18Y)
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
- CEN10CA254
- 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
Nelson Steven Paul WAG-AEROSPORTSMAN2+2
- Aircraft type
- Nelson Steven Paul WAG-AEROSPORTSMAN2 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
- N124SN
- Operator
- Nelson Steven P
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Milaca Municipal Airport (18Y), Milica, MNTo Milaca Municipal Airport (18Y), Milica, MN
- 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 go-around
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he and his passenger had flown for approximately 1.5 hours before returning to his airport for landing. Prior to landing, the pilot became distracted by another aircraft within the vicinity of the airport and he forgot to switch to "both" tanks on the fuel selector. During the landing, the airplane bounced and the pilot executed a go-around in order to perform "a better landing." While executing the go-around the engine lost power. The pilot attempted to land on the remaining runway; however, the airplane touched down in a field and the left main landing gear collapsed. The pilot reported that he forgot to switch fuel tanks during the flight and that was the reason the engine lost power. Examination of the airplane revealed the left main wing spar was bent.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot's inadequate in-flight fuel management.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA254
- Event ID
- 20100517X40736
- Case number
- CEN10CA254
- 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 2010-05-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1a2a55d0ecb9256058a167aebe680da5c1a55e3bd14fba6aa67fa8cff593986a; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:06:40.501Z.