CEN17LA089 · Ercoupe 415-C
Ercoupe 415-C · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Cavern City Air Terminal (CNM) to Deming Municipal Airport (DMN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA089
- 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
Ercoupe 415-C
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe 415
- 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
- N94694
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cavern City Air Terminal (CNM), Carlsbad, NMTo Deming Municipal Airport (DMN), Deming, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 70 years (built 1947)
- 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 starvation
- 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 systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on a cross-country flight when the airplane's engine lost power during cruise flight about 1 hour 13 minutes after takeoff. The pilot stated that the wing fuel tank gauge indicated above 3/4 full and that the header tank sight gauge appeared "unchanged" from where it had been at departure. The pilot's corrective actions were unsuccessful in restoring engine power, and he conducted a forced landing to a dirt road. The airplane's left wing struck a small tree during the landing roll, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing and twin vertical stabilizers. The pilot reported that the header fuel tank was empty after the accident, and each wing fuel tank contained about 7-8 gallons of fuel.
During normal operation, the engine-driven fuel pump transfers fuel from the wing tanks to the header tank, where it is gravity fed to the engine. A postaccident functional test of the header tank float-equipped sight gauge, which indicates the amount of fuel in the header tank, revealed the float would stick in the full up position and would remain stuck in that position despite vigorous shaking of the assembly by hand. There were no anomalies observed during multiple engine test runs, during which the engine-driven fuel pump functioned normally. Examination of the wing fuel tanks revealed significant pitting of the aluminum skins and peeling tank sealant. However, there was no evidence of an obstruction of the fuel lines when compressed air was blown through the fuel lines. The wing tank fuel shutoff valve was found in the on position and was secured by a rubber hose. The airplane was not equipped with an electric fuel pump. In the event of an engine-driven fuel pump failure or an obstructed fuel transfer line, the only fuel accessible to the engine was from the header tank. The reason why the engine-driven fuel pump did not continue to transfer fuel from the wing tanks to the header tank during the flight could not be determined with the available information.
Because the header tank sight gauge float was stuck in the full up position, the pilot did not have the normal visual indication that the header tank was being depleted of fuel during the flight. However, the pilot could have identified that fuel was not being transferred from the wing tanks to the header tank had he adequately monitored the wing fuel tank quantity gauge for a continual decrease throughout the flight. Had the pilot identified the fuel transfer issue before the header tank was depleted of fuel, he could have potentially landed before the engine was starved of fuel.
Probable cause
A malfunction of the fuel transfer system for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information, a stuck float in the header tank sight gauge that resulted in an inaccurate fuel quantity indication, and the pilot’s inadequate monitoring of the wing tank fuel quantity during the flight, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation when the header tank became depleted of fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA089
- Event ID
- 20170130X23850
- Case number
- CEN17LA089
- 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: b7c468660378cda88ef778120370070b36e8c3fc753aac4a4c6e45954cfeece8; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:58:34.464Z.