ERA14LA105 · Piper PA-32RT-300
H Kyle Gay M D Piper PA-32RT-300 · Accident: fuel starvation during takeoff
From Millen, GA (no airport) to Baldwin County Regional Airport (KMLJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA105
- 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-32RT-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
- N36086
- Operator
- H Kyle Gay M D
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Millen, GA (no airport)To Baldwin County Regional Airport (KMLJ), Milledgeville, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
The pilot/owner said that the preflight, engine start, run-up, and taxi checks all appeared "normal" with no anomalies noted. During the initial climb after takeoff, the engine experienced a total loss of power. The pilot lowered the landing gear and maneuvered the airplane toward an open field. During the landing roll, the airplane struck baled hay on the border of the field and came to rest inverted with the wings separated.
Examination of the airplane revealed that the fuel selector lever was adjacent to the left tank position but that it was out of the left tank detent. Manipulation of the lever revealed smooth operation and positive detents at each position selected. A can of fuel was plumbed into the fuel system, and the propeller and starter were replaced due to impact damage. The engine was then started, and it accelerated smoothly and ran without interruption with no anomalies noted. It is likely that the fuel selector being out of the of left tank detent resulted in reduced fuel flow to the engine and the subsequent loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to fully seat the fuel selector in the left tank position before takeoff, which resulted in fuel starvation and a subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA105
- Event ID
- 20140126X01435
- Case number
- ERA14LA105
- 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: 3d4678e8510bf6b4f7f6308600927de8557a70edd15f32486d163008e4a22e08; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:16:44.854Z.