GAA17CA331 · Piper PA25 260
Piper PA25 260 · Accident: fuel exhaustion en route
From Ken Jernstedt Airfield (4S2) to Ken Jernstedt Airfield (4S2)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA331
- 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 PA25 260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA25
- 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
- N8578L
- Operator
- Hood River Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ken Jernstedt Airfield (4S2), Hood River, ORTo Ken Jernstedt Airfield (4S2), Hood River, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1969)
- 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 · descent
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The glider tow pilot reported that, during preflight, the fuel indicator read "2/3 full" and he had a "brief discussion" with the previous pilot who had just completed numerous glider tow flights without refueling. He added that a fuel dipstick was not available, and a visual check of the fuel quantity was not completed during preflight. He further added that on the 10th glider tow flight, which was about 2 hours of flight time, he noted a "low fuel indication in flight just prior to glider release." Subsequently, the glider released and during the return to the airport, about 2 nautical miles from the runway and about 1,900 above ground, the engine lost power.
The pilot reported that due to the quartering headwind aloft he did not believe he could make the runway, so he attempted to land on an open pasture, but struck trees and impacted terrain about "50 yards short of [the] pasture."
The fuselage, elevator, and both wings sustained substantial damage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to visually check the fuel level prior to takeoff and subsequent mismanagement of the available fuel supply during numerous glider tow flights.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA331
- Event ID
- 20170612X33014
- Case number
- GAA17CA331
- 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: b1f35d97667bd609006d7b3aaf911820db6f4786fb134e0e66325ffe0f085915; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:24:05.438Z.