ERA11LA198 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: fuel exhaustion on approach
From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA) to Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA198
- 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-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N2027M
- Operator
- Dupon Jean
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA), Hyannis, MATo Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY), Vineyard Haven, MA
- 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 pattern final
- 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 reported that, after flying for approximately 25 minutes, the engine lost power. He performed a forced landing on a nearby beach. During the landing, the airplane struck a piling and came to rest in knee-deep water. The wings and empennage sustained substantial damage. The pilot reported that he departed with the fuel gauges reading half full. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the fuel tank selector valve was on the right tank position. The right wing fuel tank was compromised by impact forces. After recovery of the airplane from the beach, 20 gallons of seawater were drained from the right wing; there was no fuel present. The wreckage was moved to a nearby hangar where a more detailed examination of the airplane was performed. The examination revealed a lack of fuel throughout the fuel system.
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 ERA11LA198
- Event ID
- 20110320X70728
- Case number
- ERA11LA198
- 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 2011-03-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e4a1791db206d9f1fc3e839d55b99afe4012a4b33f5ed55d2b681e790988c060; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:56:23.479Z.