WPR22LA271 · Piper PA-32-301
Green Valley Corporation I Piper PA-32-301 · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From an unrecorded airport to Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA271
- 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
Piper PA-32-301
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N300BH
- Operator
- Green Valley Corporation I
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), San Jose, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1980)
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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 had planned to fly the airplane on a short flight back to the owner’s hangar following an annual inspection. According to the pilot, the engine lost all power during climbout from the departure airport. The airplane impacted the ground, struck a fence and came to rest upright.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no preimpact mechanical anomalies of the airplane or engine that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane contained 15 gallons of fuel in each wing fuel tank before the annual inspection began. The maintenance facility ran the engine at maximum power with the fuel selector positioned on the left fuel tank for at least 45 minutes during the annual inspection. Fuel consumption calculations indicate this would have nearly depleted the left fuel tank of fuel. No additional fuel was added by the mechanics or the pilot before the accident flight nor was there any discussion between the pilot and mechanic regarding the amount of fuel remaining in the airplane.
It is likely that the pilot departed without a thorough preflight inspection or he would have observed the low fuel quantity and switched to the right fuel tank before departure. The pilot stated that he switched tanks once during the accident flight after the power loss. As the fuel selector was found in the right tank position at the accident site, it is likely that he departed on the left fuel tank. This evidence suggests that the pilot’s improper fuel management resulted in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power.
Further, the departure airport did not sell the type of fuel required to power the accident airplane. However, it is unlikely that this would have influenced the pilot’s decision as he believed he had sufficient fuel to complete the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight inspection and fuel management, which resulted in fuel starvation, a total loss of engine power, and an impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA271
- Event ID
- 20220726105586
- Case number
- WPR22LA271
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2022-07-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: afe3ed1fad1d70568b09ba3bc2a4e8e09a6b2e91dc706094d68bdb00683fb1ac; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:31:17.613Z.