CEN22LA341 · Cessna 421B
Hawkfitz Cessna 421B · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From Goodland Municipal Airport (KGLD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA341
- 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
- 0
- 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
Cessna 421B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N21GF
- Operator
- Hawkfitz
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Goodland Municipal Airport (KGLD), Goodland, KSTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1971)
- 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 · VFR go-around
- 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 › 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 he departed on the estimated 1-hour flight with about 110 gallons of fuel onboard. Upon reaching the destination airport, he elected to perform a go-around. During the go-around the left engine lost total power. The airplane descended into a corn field, resulting in substantial damage to both wings.
The second pilot on board reported that, while on final approach for landing, both engines sputtered at about the same time, “like fuel exhaustion.” He estimated the airplane’s total fuel consumption to be about 40 to 45 gallons per hour. He stated that he thought the airplane had about 80 gallons of fuel on board at the time of the accident.
A postaccident examination revealed that the fuel selector for the left engine was in the “LEFT MAIN” position and the selector for the right engine was in the “RIGHT MAIN” position. The left main fuel tank (located on the wingtip) separated from the airplane during the impact and was absent of fuel. The right main tank contained about 1 gallon of fuel, the right auxiliary tank contained about 5 gallons of fuel, and the left auxiliary tank and left nacelle tank were absent of fuel. After reconnecting the wiring, fuel quantity indicators were functionally checked with no anomalies noted.
During a postaccident engine examination, no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies were found that would have precluded normal operation. The total amount of fuel onboard the airplane before the flight could not be determined; however, given the lack of fuel found in the tanks after the accident and no indications of engine anomalies, it is likely that the loss of engine power was the result of fuel exhaustion.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power as a result of fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA341
- Event ID
- 20220726105576
- Case number
- CEN22LA341
- 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: ded1b07ba01171721f4108f6d1eaaa4ea081d69250b3c33baa61b417af7f684e; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:30:50.599Z.