ERA23LA101 · Cessna 340A
Aonvo Investment Cessna 340A · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) en route
From Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport (TKPK) to Providenciales International Airport (PLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23LA101
- 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
Cessna 340A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 340
- 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
- N824BC
- Operator
- Aonvo Investment
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport (TKPK), St. Kitts, AOTo Providenciales International Airport (PLS), Providenciales, AO
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1977)
- 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 · descent
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 pilot reported that he began the accident flight with 160 gallons of fuel on board. The airplane was equipped with two main wingtip fuel tanks, two in-wing auxiliary fuel tanks, and one engine nacelle locker fuel tank. His normal procedure was to operate for 50 minutes out of the main tanks, then use most of the fuel in the auxiliary tanks, then transfer fuel out of the locker tank and use all of that fuel. While approaching the destination airport, he attempted to transfer fuel from the locker tank; however, he later noticed that fuel was not transferring from that tank. Later, the right engine lost all power, followed by the left. He subsequently ditched the airplane in the ocean about 17 miles from of the destination airport. The airplane landed on the water, and the pilot and his passengers donned life vests and egressed before the airplane sank. The occupants were rescued about 4 hours later. The airplane was not recovered from the ocean and was presumed substantially damaged. A postaccident examination of the fuel system could not be performed and the reason for the pilot’s inability to transfer fuel from the engine nacelle locker tank could not be determined.
Probable cause
A fuel system malfunction for reasons that could not be determined, which resulted in fuel starvation to both engines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23LA101
- Event ID
- 20230106106542
- Case number
- ERA23LA101
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a7f64124af07fe291e64a80e79e50b1be88a46ee7685a636515ec693e0545ce2; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:13:49.458Z.