ERA14LA411 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L · Accident: fuel exhaustion en route
From Bowman Field (LOU) to Elizabeth City Regional Airport & Coast Guard Air Station (ECG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA411
- 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 150L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N1741Q
- Operator
- Leggett James W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bowman Field (LOU), Louisville, KYTo Elizabeth City Regional Airport & Coast Guard Air Station (ECG), Elizabeth City, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1971)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 exhaustion
- 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, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot took off on a cross-cross country flight at night and did not stop for fuel. While the airplane was nearing the destination airport, the engine began to run roughly and then lost all power. The pilot tried to restart the engine but was unsuccessful, so he subsequently conducted a forced landing, and the airplane impacted trees.
No fuel odor was noted at the accident site. The fuel tanks remained intact, and no fuel was in the right wing tank, a trace amount of fuel was in the left wing fuel tank, and 2 to 3 ounces of fuel were in the fuel sump. When fuel was added to the carburetor, the engine started and ran. In addition, the fuel gauges were tested, and no anomalies were noted.
The unpressurized airplane was equipped with a normally aspirated engine, and its published service ceiling was 12,600 ft mean sea level (msl); however, according to air traffic control (ATC) information, the pilot attempted to climb the airplane to 17,500 ft msl. A review of radar and ATC data revealed that, at the time of the accident, the airplane had been operating for 4 hours 52 minutes and that, although the airplane did not reach 17,500 ft msl, it remained above 12,500 ft msl for 2 hours 40 minutes and reached a maximum altitude of 16,000 ft msl. Review of the owner's manual revealed that, at 12,500 ft msl with a lean mixture and 2,500 rpm, the airplane had an endurance of 5.8 hours; however, these calculations did not include fuel consumed during the taxi, takeoff, initial climb, and continued climb attempt to 17,500 ft msl.
According to law enforcement, after the accident, the pilot had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath, and his eyes were red and glassy. A sample of the pilot's breath was taken on a portable breathalyzer, which recorded a blood alcohol content of 0.16, indicating that the pilot was likely impaired at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate fuel planning, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s impairment due to alcohol ingestion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA411
- Event ID
- 20140829X81313
- Case number
- ERA14LA411
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-08-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7f2f0f20f568a104d1404f78cb4c3a1573fbcf48426144dec1de51daa6e499b7; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:42:08.500Z.