ERA21LA338 · Schmitt Just Acft Highlander

The personal flight was approaching a private turf runway for landing. After the airplane completed a continuous 260° left-turning approach toward the runway, the pilot decided that he wanted to land to the south rather than to the north and applied engine power. However, the engine lost total power, and the pilot landed the airplane “abruptly” before it impacted a building. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and empennage. The pilot reported that the left-wing fuel tank was leaking after the accident. The pilot also reported that, at the time of the accident, the airplane had flown a total of about 4 hours since it was last refueled to capacity (26 gallons total). The pilot stated that his planned fuel consumption rate was 5 gallons per hour. Postaccident examination of the airplane found that the left-wing tank contained no fuel and that the right-wing tank contained about 1.5 to 2.0 gallons. A test run of the engine revealed no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. A field test was then performed in which the airplane was suspended from a sling, and the pitch and roll attitude captured by avionics data during the continuous left turn just before the accident was applied to the airplane. Water was added to each of the wing fuel tanks to determine the quantity needed to reach the fuel pickup (which unports fuel) on the inboard side of each tank. The test indicated that, when the airplane was in a descending left-turn attitude, fuel began to flow from the right tank at a quantity of about 3.5 gallons; however, about 6.5 gallons had to be added to the left tank before fuel flow was noted. The total amount of fuel onboard the airplane at the time of the accident and its distribution could not be determined based on the available evidence for this accident investigation. However, given the pilot’s estimated fuel consumption rate and the time since refueling, the airplane likely consumed about 20 gallons of fuel, leaving about 6 gallons divided between the two wing tanks. Postaccident testing showed that it is likely that this amount of fuel could have caused fuel unporting from the tank pickups during the extended left turn, resulting in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset