WPR15LA237 · Piper PA 28-181
Aspen Flying Club Piper PA 28-181 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Lincoln Regional Karl Harder Field (LHM) to Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA237
- 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
- N7963C
- Operator
- Aspen Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lincoln Regional Karl Harder Field (LHM), Lincoln, CATo Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA), Idaho Falls, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1975)
- 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)
- 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 reported that, before departing for the cross-country flight, the fuel tanks were full and that the airplane could fly about 5 to 5.5 hours with full tanks. He planned to stop at an airport and refuel 4.5 hours after departure. However, 4 hours into the flight, the pilot determined that the groundspeed was less than planned and that the airplane would not make it to the intended fueling destination. At this time, the left fuel tank quantity gauge indicated that the tank had 5 gallons, and the right fuel tank gauge indicated that the tank had more than 5 gallons, which he estimated was sufficient fuel for 1 more hour of flight, so he decided to continue to an alternate airport even though he was currently over another airport. The pilot reported that, about 10 miles from the alternate airport, the right fuel tank gauge indicated that the tank was empty and that the left fuel tank gauge indicated that the tank had between 2 and 5 gallons. Shortly thereafter, the engine lost power, and the pilot initiated a forced landing to a field, during which the airplane sustained substantial damage.
A postaccident examination of the airframe revealed that the fuel tanks were not breached and that they were empty; only residual quantities of fuel were observed in the engine ancillary components. The engine examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The low flight time pilot's inadequate in-flight fuel planning, which resulted in fuel exhaustion, a loss of engine power, and an off-airport landing in rough terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA237
- Event ID
- 20150807X60314
- Case number
- WPR15LA237
- 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 2015-08-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b7b2e563f177a080e2549971378814bc6918ce7b8f3de571654fe73f40cb4424; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:38:25.678Z.