WPR13LA094 · Piper PA-28-235
Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From Northeast Wyoming Regional Airport (GCC) to Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA094
- 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-28-235
- 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
- N49DS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Wyoming Regional Airport (GCC), Gillette, WYTo Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS), Rock Springs, WY
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1976)
- 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 downwind
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After an uneventful cross-country flight, the pilot initiated the landing descent by reducing engine power. As the airplane approached the airport's base leg, he performed the landing checklist, which included switching the fuel selector valve to the left tip tank. As the airplane turned from the base to final leg, it descended too low, and he applied full engine power. The engine did not respond, and a few seconds later lost all power. With limited altitude to complete a thorough emergency check, he performed a forced landing into rough terrain. During the landing sequence, the airplane struck a fence and berm, sustaining substantial damage to both wings.
Following the accident, the pilot expressed concern that he may have inadvertently starved the engine of fuel during the approach, by turning the fuel selector valve beyond its left tip tank travel limit, and to the OFF position. The airplane's fuel selector lever was fitted with an interlock mechanism, which was designed to prevent the pilot from inadvertently shutting off the fuel in this manner. Examination revealed that the mechanism had shifted, such that the fuel selector lever could be moved to a position in-between the left tip tank, and OFF detent without engaging the interlock, therefore possibly resulting in an interruption of fuel flow to the engine.
Data extracted from the engine monitor, as well as the minimal quantities of fuel recovered from the fuel system components within the engine compartment, were consistent with a fuel starvation event.
A postaccident examination of the engine and successful engine run revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent movement of the fuel selector valve beyond its tank detent, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the fuel selector interlock mechanism.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA094
- Event ID
- 20130118X65621
- Case number
- WPR13LA094
- 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: 82333eb010aff0621728ac1b633bbbd572aa4fdf3315bf66500dec62f1c66934; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:46:19.551Z.