WPR19LA027 · Piper PA28 140
Piper PA28 140 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during an uncontrolled descent
From Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY) to Presidio Lely International Airport (PRS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19LA027
- 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 PA28 140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N1715J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY), Arlington, TXTo Presidio Lely International Airport (PRS), Presidio, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1968)
- 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
- Uncontrolled 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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 power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to departure, the airplane was fueled with 50 gallons of fuel, which the pilot estimated would last for 5 hours of flight time. He planned for a 3 hour and 40-minute flight. When the airplane was about 55 miles from the destination airport, the engine began to sputter. According to the pilot, the right fuel tank was selected, so he switched to the left fuel tank position. The engine ran without any further issues until the left fuel tank ran out of fuel. The pilot performed a forced landing to a dirt landing strip without incident. After landing, the pilot examined the airplane and determined the right fuel tank was empty and the left tank had over 15 gallons of fuel. He started the engine and decided to continue the flight to Presidio, Texas. As the airplane reached about 5,500 ft after takeoff, the engine began to lose partial power. When the airplane was about 6 miles from the destination airport, the engine lost total power. The pilot attempted to land in a dry riverbed; however, the airplane stalled about 20 ft above the ground and the landing gear struck terrain damaging the outboard section of the right wing. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the fuel tanks were intact; the left fuel tank was empty, and the right fuel tank contained approximately 15 gallons of fuel. Because the student pilot’s recollection of the available fuel after the first forced landing differs from what was found after the accident, the investigation could not determine the reason for the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s loss of control at low altitude during a forced landing, which resulted in impact with terrain and substantial damage to the right wing. A contributing factor in the accident was the loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19LA027
- Event ID
- 20181114X14927
- Case number
- WPR19LA027
- 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, cause areas. 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: 9ad033b4c688b2d5db71b5dc5cf3ef07a1fb32d571544b2aa4ec3b369a80e261; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:26:10.040Z.