CEN20LA055 · Aero Commander 100 UNDESIGNAT
Aero Commander 100 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Abilene Regional Airport (ABI) to Mullin, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA055
- 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
Aero Commander 100 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 100
- 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
- N5573M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Abilene Regional Airport (ABI), Abilene, TXTo Mullin, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 53 years (built 1967)
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and student pilot were conducting a cross-country flight. During a gradual descent to the destination airstrip, the engine lost total power, and the airplane sustained substantial damage during the subsequent forced landing. The airplane was recovered from the accident site and an engine examination and test run revealed no anomalies.
Examination of the fuel selector revealed that either the fuel selector handle or the pointer was installed 180° out of position. When the selector handle was selected to BOTH, the valve was completely closed, in what should have been the OFF position. When the selector handle was selected to OFF, the valve was open, in what should have been the BOTH position.
The temperature and dewpoint for the accident time and accident site were not conducive to the formation of carburetor icing.
It is possible that if the fuel selector was manipulated to the BOTH position during the flight, the fuel may have been prevented from reaching the engine due to the incorrect installation of the selector handle. However, the examination could not determine whether it was the selector handle or the pointer that was installed incorrectly. Based on the available evidence, the reason for the total loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA055
- Event ID
- 20200104X82940
- Case number
- CEN20LA055
- 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: c1c040be1d90285a4640e743345461101ee1e164751953beace330e06b41f7d5; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:52:00.182Z.