ERA11LA326 · Buckeye DREAM MACHINE
Buckeye DREAM MACHINE · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Morristown Regional Airport (MOR) to Morristown Regional Airport (MOR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA326
- 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
- 1 · 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
Buckeye DREAM MACHINE
- Aircraft type
- Buckeye DREAM MACHINE
- Category
- Powered Parachute
- 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
- N3561F
- Operator
- Cattrell Jefferson Bushfield
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morristown Regional Airport (MOR), Morristown, TNTo Morristown Regional Airport (MOR), Morristown, TN
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The powered parachute collided with and remained suspended in trees. After responding, police officers and the pilot's son spoke to the pilot for about two to three minutes before the aircraft broke out of the treetops and fell to the ground. During the brief conversation between the pilot, his son, and the officers, the purpose of the flight and the circumstances of the collision with trees were not discussed. According to his son, the pilot reported, “The darn thing just quit.” The pilot subsequently died from his injuries and was not interviewed. Examination of the airframe at the scene revealed substantial damage to the airframe tubing and an estimated 5 gallons of fuel remaining in the 8-gallon fuel tank. Further examination revealed that the pilot had installed an auxiliary fuel line and shutoff valve, which was open, that connected to a 5-gallon gas can in the back seat; the gas can was empty. After the airframe examination, the engine started immediately, accelerated smoothly, and ran continuously without interruption. According to the son of the pilot/owner, his father likely exhausted the fuel supply in the auxiliary fuel can, which starved the engine, and resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to switch fuel tanks when the fuel was exhausted, which resulted in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11LA326
- Event ID
- 20110605X61442
- Case number
- ERA11LA326
- 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. 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: 2de75734b6990eed188bafc44586409416e760ad10c8959ed04266918190aa8c; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:27:09.228Z.