WPR15LA055 · Fouga CM 170R MAGISTER
Fouga CM 170R MAGISTER · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Grand Canyon National Park Airport (KGCN) to Lake Havasu City, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA055
- 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
Fouga CM 170R MAGISTER
- Aircraft type
- Fouga CM-170
- 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
- N300FM
- Operator
- Michael Perry
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Canyon National Park Airport (KGCN), Grand Canyon, AZTo Lake Havasu City, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1964)
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft systems
- 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 commercial pilot/owner was conducting a cross-country personal flight in the experimental airplane and stopped at an intermediate airport for fuel. While descending to the destination airport, both engines flamed out. The pilot estimated that the airplane should have had about 1.5 hours of fuel remaining when the engine flameouts occurred. The pilot determined that the airplane would not be able to glide to the airport, so he attempted to land it on a short asphalt strip. The airplane touched down firmly with about 1,000 ft remaining. The pilot was unable to stop the airplane on the asphalt, and it continued about 200 ft off the end into rough terrain. The cockpit remained intact, but the rest of the airplane sustained substantial damage.
The airplane had a submerged boost pump in the rear fuselage tank that supplied fuel to both engines through a filter and a nonreturn valve. The main fuel filter had a bypass pin inside the bowl, which moved up and down when the filter was partially blocked and forced the bypass poppet valve to move up. The pilot and his mechanic examined the airplane after the accident and observed that the poppet valve was in the full-up position. The mechanic suggested that this indicated that there was a blockage in the fuel system; however, due to the damage, he and the pilot did not attempt to find the blockage site. Based on the available evidence, both engines likely lost power due to fuel starvation as a result of an interruption of the fuel flow.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power to both engines during descent due to fuel starvation as a result of an interruption of the fuel flow, which resulted in a forced landing to a short strip and a subsequent overrun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA055
- Event ID
- 20141206X65206
- Case number
- WPR15LA055
- 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, coordinates. 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: e460f43054de08c5cf09ad51cb3555897d9ce246619f968f922c8614c5009ad1; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:57:53.008Z.