ERA18LA086 · Stearman B75 N1
Stearman B75 N1 · Accident: fuel related on approach
From Leesburg International Airport (LEE) to Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA086
- 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
Stearman B75 N1
- Aircraft type
- Stearman B75
- 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
- N62438
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Leesburg International Airport (LEE), Leesburg, FLTo Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH), Zephyrhills, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 76 years (built 1942)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 related
- 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
- Pole
- 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 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 departure, the airplane had 17 gallons of fuel for the flight to another airport where he planned to stop to refuel. He added that, after 45 minutes of flight and while the airplane was descending through 1,800 ft above ground level, the engine lost power. While on final approach and about 3 miles from the airport, he realized that the airplane would not reach the runway, so he chose to conduct an emergency landing on a road. Just before touchdown, the right wing impacted a traffic light pole and then the airplane impacted the ground. During postaccident examination of the airplane, no fuel was found in the fuel system. Postaccident examination of the engine (and fuel system) revealed the presence of some debris in the carburetor fuel screen and the fuel sump. Otherwise, no evidence of any preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot’s preflight fuel planning was inadequate because he did not ensure that sufficient fuel was onboard for the flight, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight fuel planning, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a subsequent total loss of engine power and impact with a pole during a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA086
- Event ID
- 20180223X55649
- Case number
- ERA18LA086
- 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, coordinates. 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: 701b901e163847c0139b4d05d3cf9dcf23296b9dd8be8dbf20ee43125ddad049; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:30:49.617Z.