ERA12CA088 · Anatra Bart T VANS RV-7A
Anatra Bart T VANS RV-7A · Accident: fuel starvation during initial climb
From New Kent County Airport (W96) to New Kent County Airport (W96)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA088
- 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
Anatra Bart T VANS RV-7A
- Aircraft type
- Anatra Bart VANS RV-7A
- 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
- N816BA
- Operator
- Bradley David
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Kent County Airport (W96), Quinton, VATo New Kent County Airport (W96), Quinton, VA
- 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 › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after a touch-and-go landing and takeoff and, while the airplane was about 500 feet above the ground, the engine lost power. The pilot attempted to return to the airport; however, the airplane landed short of the runway. The nose gear collapsed, and the airplane "flipped," resulting in structural damage to the engine firewall, fuselage, and vertical stabilizer. Examination of the wreckage found that the right fuel tank was empty and was not breached. The pilot stated that the main fuel switch was in the right tank position when the engine lost power. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunction or failure.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation, and the subsequent nose-over during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA088
- Event ID
- 20111129X95008
- Case number
- ERA12CA088
- 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: 30829761aa87cfdcdd5785cc2d3c1c4f674a3ee841cbc5f1005a0192eb8724d0; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:58:15.246Z.