ERA11CA506 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: fuel starvation during initial climb
From Orange County Airport (MGJ) to Orange County Airport (MGJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11CA506
- 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N6800W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orange County Airport (MGJ), Montgomery, NYTo Orange County Airport (MGJ), Montgomery, NY
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the certified flight instructor, he and the student pilot/owner had been performing takeoffs and landings for about 1 hour with the left fuel tank selected; they then switched the fuel selector valve to the right fuel tank before performing an engine run-up. During the takeoff climb, about 300 feet above ground level, the engine lost all power. The flight instructor assumed control of the airplane and attempted to land in a clearing. During the landing flare, the right wing impacted a tree, resulting in substantial damage to the wing. A postaccident examination revealed that the left fuel tank was full of fuel; however, the right fuel tank, carburetor, and electric fuel pump were devoid of fuel. No other preimpact anomalies were noted.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilots’ inadequate fuel management.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11CA506
- Event ID
- 20110929X80852
- Case number
- ERA11CA506
- 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: 17e5aa49a2731ce6a6cd4477f2f7ef084eca1f3fc876aa59304f92a4751dd39a; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:47:47.988Z.