ERA15LA294 · Commander Aircraft Co 114 B
Commander Aircraft Co 114 B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG) to Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA294
- 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
Commander Aircraft Co 114 B
- Aircraft type
- Commander 114
- 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
- N6566D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG), Reading, PATo Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG), Reading, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2000)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the airline transport pilot, about 30 minutes into the personal flight and while the airplane was at 3,000 ft mean sea level, the engine "seemed to lose power for a second." About 1 second later, the engine "shut off completely." The pilot tried to restart the engine by turning on the electric fuel boost pump and then moving the fuel selector to each of the positions without success. He then moved the fuel selector back to the "both tanks" position and set the nose pitch for best glide speed; however, the airplane was unable to glide to the airport, so the pilot set it up for an off-field landing. During the forced landing, the airplane encountered uneven terrain, and the right wing struck a tree.
A postaccident engine test run was conducted, and the engine would not start. Subsequent examination of the engine revealed that a fuel supply line fitting at the fuel manifold was loose and that fuel leaked excessively from the fitting when the electric boost pump was turned on. After the fitting was tightened, the engine started without hesitation and ran continuously at idle power. Due to three bent propeller blades and vibration, a higher power setting was not attempted. A review of the airplane and engine logbooks found no entries indicating that any recent maintenance had been conducted on the fuel system.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the fuel supply line fitting at the fuel manifold, which resulted in the line loosening in-flight, fuel leakage, and a subsequent total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA294
- Event ID
- 20150803X63017
- Case number
- ERA15LA294
- 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: 9b85838c898fdef4d9d8eac380bfc175a66a8cb09175d013cd7d13f4fb26ce36; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:37:08.467Z.