ERA10LA422 · Taylorcraft BC12-D
Taylorcraft BC12-D · Accident: fuel exhaustion while maneuvering
From Maple Ridge Airport (03ME) to Maple Ridge Airport (03ME)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA422
- 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
- 2 · 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
Taylorcraft BC12-D
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N96389
- Operator
- Fortin George A
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Maple Ridge Airport (03ME), Harrison, METo Maple Ridge Airport (03ME), Harrison, ME
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed for the intended 2-hour flight with an inadequate supply of fuel resulting in fuel exhaustion. Witnesses reported hearing a sputtering engine followed by silence. While flying over a wooded area in controlled flight, the airplane collided with the tops of trees then nosed down and descended to the ground. Detailed inspection of the airplane's fuel supply system, which was not compromised, revealed a total of 4 ounces of fuel were drained from the entire airplane. Inspection of the main fuel tank fuel quantity indicator, which consisted of a cork mounted on a steel wire, revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. Examination of the flight controls, engine, and engine systems also revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA422
- Event ID
- 20100815X81520
- Case number
- ERA10LA422
- 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: 4bdc9c5d031bae4a72122b3b6d795d67b885b591d6b2df45ee799fb0544c4041; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:00:08.107Z.