ERA14LA167 · Cessna O1 - A
St. Pete Aerial Advertising Cessna O1 - A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG) to Albert Whitted Airport (SPG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA167
- 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
Cessna O1 - A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 1
- 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
- N211PP
- Operator
- St. Pete Aerial Advertising
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG), St. Petersburg, FLTo Albert Whitted Airport (SPG), St. Petersburg, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 63 years (built 1951)
- 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
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on the 2-hour banner tow flight with 58 gallons of fuel onboard the airplane. After 1 hour, the pilot returned to the airport to pick up a different banner for the second hour of the flight. The pilot's first pick-up attempt was unsuccessful. He then briefly circled the pick-up location and then completed the pick-up on the second attempt. During the initial climb, the engine experienced a total loss of power. The pilot released the banner and conducted a forced landing to a saltwater bay.
Postrecovery examination of the fuel tanks revealed that the right main and auxiliary tanks were full of fuel and contained some saltwater. The left auxiliary tank was full of fuel and contained some saltwater, and the 18-gallon left main tank was empty and dry and contained no traces of either fuel or water. The pilot reported that the entire flight was conducted on the left main fuel tank. During a subsequent test run using the fuel that was onboard the airplane at the time of the accident, the engine operated with no anomalies or malfunctions.
Interpolation of fuel consumption chart data revealed that the engine could consume between 7 and 10 gallons per hour (gph) during cruise flight and, according to an engine manufacturer representative, it could consume up to 21 gph during a full-power climb. According to the pilot, the engine power loss occurred during the fifth climbout of the flight. According to the Pilot's Operating Handbook, the fuel selector should be placed on the fullest tank before descent. Although the fuel selector was found in the right main tank position, the pilot did not recall switching the fuel selector to the right tank, and it is likely that he moved the fuel selector following the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight fuel management, which resulted in fuel exhaustion in the selected tank and a subsequent loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA167
- Event ID
- 20140324X60401
- Case number
- ERA14LA167
- 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: b31cbdded3258df7fe38281e708a8c4155bb62e45629e9cc797758af600d6d12; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:26:35.742Z.