GAA19CA426 · North American T28 B
North American T28 B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Hollister Municipal Airport (CVH) to Hollister Municipal Airport (CVH)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA426
- 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
North American T28 B
- Aircraft type
- North American T28
- 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
- N28CU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hollister Municipal Airport (CVH), Hollister, CATo Hollister Municipal Airport (CVH), Hollister, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 63 years (built 1956)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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 pilot reported that, after takeoff and while the airplane was about 500 ft above ground level, he retracted the landing gear and that, shortly thereafter, the engine sputtered and lost power. He adjusted the fuel mixture, but it did not have any effect. He attempted to return to the airport, but after realizing that the airplane would not reach the runway, he decided to land in a dirt field near the airport with the landing gear retracted. He recalled that he had the airplane refueled about a week before the accident. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The Federal Aviation Administration inspector who examined the airplane reported that he only removed about 1 or 2 cups of fuel out of the fuel system. The airplane was equipped with only one fuel gauge, which had a single switch that had left, right, and center positions. In the left position, it showed empty; in the center position, which showed the total fuel onboard, it showed 900 lbs; and in the right position, it also showed 900 lbs. No fuel leaks were found, and there were no signs of fuel on the ground. The pilot reported as a safety recommendation to "always top off fuel."
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel planning, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and the subsequent total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA426
- Event ID
- 20190716X10219
- Case number
- GAA19CA426
- 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: 79d881d78398d1cee2aa0934816cad4565ce51cf93ba791d855ba1948ed2d513; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:25:29.869Z.