CEN17LA038 · Weatherly Aviation Co Inc 620B
Burkett Aviation Weatherly Aviation Co Inc 620B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From PRI · Coleman, TX to PRI · Coleman, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA038
- 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
Weatherly Aviation Co Inc 620B
- Aircraft type
- Weatherly 620
- 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
- N2035J
- Operator
- Burkett Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PRI · Coleman, TXTo PRI · Coleman, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1995)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was practicing agricultural application operations on his first flight in the accident airplane. While climbing after completing a spray pass, the airplane experienced a total loss of engine power and the pilot made a forced landing during which the airplane nosed over. Examination of the airplane revealed that the right fuel tank was intact and void of fuel, while the left tank was breached, with fuel leaking from the tank. The fuel selector was in the right tank position. No engine anomalies were observed. The pilot had been advised by the owner to switch fuel tanks after flying about 40 minutes, but failed to do so. His advice was based on the engine's typical fuel burn of about 33 gallons per hour and fuel tank capacity of 35 gallons per wing tank. The owner estimated the airplane was airborne for about one hour before the accident occurred. Given the airplane's time in flight and the lack of fuel found in the right wing tank after the accident, it is likely that the loss of engine power was the result of fuel starvation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate fuel management, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA038
- Event ID
- 20161114X22408
- Case number
- CEN17LA038
- 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: 169c50c463d9deadde6ee7cfe7ea6e35d46c2acb89406efbcec26d7f4c321d1b; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:49:38.881Z.