CEN15CA055 · Piper PA 28-181
G & M Aircraft Piper PA 28-181 · Accident: fuel exhaustion en route
From Kit Carson County Airport (ITR) to Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15CA055
- 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 28-181
- 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
- N2204Q
- Operator
- G & M Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kit Carson County Airport (ITR), Burlington, COTo Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), Denver, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1977)
- 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
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 reported that the airplane was operated on a visual flight rules night flight. He estimated that the airplane had about 30 to 32 gallons of fuel prior to departure from the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), Denver, Colorado, about 1825 mst. During the flight, intermittent electrical issues were experienced including static in the headsets, flickering instrument panel lights and a fluctuating ammeter gauge. Attempts were made to alleviate the electrical issues to no avail. A touch and go landing was made at the Kit Carson Airport (ITR), Burlington, Colorado, and a decision was made to shorten the flight and return to the departure airport. The pilot reported that the fuel gauges indicated that the airplane had about 8 gallons remaining in each fuel tank about his time. After 20 minutes had elapsed from the departure from ITR, the fuel gauges showed empty. About 2035 mst, the engine stopped producing power and the pilot switched to the opposite fuel tank. The engine restarted and the flight continued for about 4 to 5 more minutes when the engine again stopped producing power. During the forced landing attempt the airplane struck wires and subsequently impacted the ground. The pilot and the flight instructor stated that the airplane's fuel load prior to departure should have been sufficient for a flight of about 3 hours. The total duration of the accident flight was about 2.25 hours. Examination of the airplane subsequent to the accident revealed no fuel remaining in either wing tank. There was no evidence of a fuel spill and no preimpact anomalies were found with respect to the airplane's fuel system. The pilot reported that the accident could have been prevented by ordering more fuel prior to departure or obtaining fuel at ITR. Based on the available information, it is likely that the airplane's fuel supply was exhausted resulting in a complete loss of engine power. It is also possible that the observed fuel gauge reading were innacurate given the electrical problems encountered during the flight.
Probable cause
The exhaustion of the fuel supply resulting in a complete loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15CA055
- Event ID
- 20141121X55418
- Case number
- CEN15CA055
- 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 2014-11-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a6331e19ee558438c5185607e64fc5fbda3cf8abb3fd06662449983fec30a3db; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:56:34.489Z.