CEN18LA197 · FAIRCHILD(HOWARD) M 62C(PT-23A) UNDESIGNAT
American Airpower Heritage Flying Museum FAIRCHILD(HOWARD) M 62C(PT-23A) UNDESIGNAT · Accident: fuel exhaustion on approach
From Westport Airport (71K) to Westport Airport (71K)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA197
- 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
FAIRCHILD(HOWARD) M 62C(PT-23A) UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild(howard) M-62
- 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
- N64176
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Westport Airport (71K), Wichita, KSTo Westport Airport (71K), Wichita, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 75 years (built 1943)
- 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 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that he filled the airplane with fuel 5 days before the accident flight. He had not flown the airplane in the intervening 5 days, and the fuel indicators were still showing that the tanks were full before the accident flight. The pilot calculated that there should have been sufficient fuel onboard for a 3-hour 15-minute-long flight. The pilot was performing flyovers at five cemeteries, which required flying holding orbits at three of the cemeteries and two passes at the other two cemeteries. He then flew back toward the departure airport to land. When the airplane was about 5 minutes from the airport, he switched fuel tanks to what appeared to be the fullest tank. He reported that the fuel level in both fuel tanks was low but that the fuel quantity indicators were showing above “E.” While on final approach, between 150 and 200 ft above the ground, the engine lost total power. He switched fuel tanks and started using the manual pump, and the engine regained power for 1 to 2 seconds before losing power again. He subsequently conducted an off-airport, forced landing in a lot about 1/8 mile from the end of the runway. The airplane touched down hard and bounced, and the right wing hit a pole. The airplane then impacted a fence and another pole before coming to rest.
The pilot used a flight tracker program, and it showed that the flight was only 2 hours 41 minutes long. Postaccident examination of the accident site found no fuel spillage. Examination of the airplane revealed that each fuel tank contained about 1/2 cup of fuel. About a teaspoon of fuel was recovered from the engine strainer bowl. Although the pilot thought there was sufficient fuel onboard the airplane for the flight, given the evidence, it is likely that the engine lost power due to fuel exhaustion because the pilot miscalculated the fuel consumption rate during preflight planning.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion, which resulted from the pilot’s miscalculation of the fuel consumption rate during preflight planning.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA197
- Event ID
- 20180529X91121
- Case number
- CEN18LA197
- 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: 0bf3c305798acdb672e0f1c16ef4f6438ee793387a4f65d4fbaa0bdc658ae2bd; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:19:48.475Z.