WPR22LA014 · Avid MARK IV
Avid MARK IV · Accident: fuel starvation while maneuvering
From KNON · Ontario, OR to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA014
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Avid MARK IV
- Aircraft type
- Avid MARK
- 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
- N583DM
- Operator
- Nelson Christopher H
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From KNON · Ontario, ORTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 starvation
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-certificated pilot was conducting a local flight in an experimental airplane and during cruise flight about 1,000 ft above ground level, the engine began to intermittently lose power. He activated the fuel pump and shortly thereafter the engine shut down. The pilot maneuvered the airplane to land in a cultivated field. The airplane was substantially damaged when it nosed over during the landing roll.
Examination of the wreckage revealed that the airplane’s header tank did not have an outlet screen installed and the fuel selector valve contained a large quantity of debris. It is likely the debris, from the fuel tank construction and/or repairs, entered the fuel selector valve from the header tank, resulting in fuel starvation to the engine and the subsequent loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during cruise flight due to fuel starvation. Contributing to the accident was the lack of an outlet screen on the fuel system header tank.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA014
- Event ID
- 20211019104121
- Case number
- WPR22LA014
- 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: 064a186cbf51d10bc113ad7ab1ad6631cf75dca46531d1b69c91780b9836d631; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:40:38.246Z.