WPR23LA125 · Rockwell International AC 690A
Phillip R Zeeck Rockwell International AC 690A · Accident: fuel exhaustion en route
From Hale County Airport (KPVW) to KHDN · Henderson, NV
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
- WPR23LA125
- 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
- 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
Rockwell International AC 690A
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell AC-690
- 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
- N4PZ
- Operator
- Phillip R Zeeck
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Hale County Airport (KPVW), Plainview, TXTo KHDN · Henderson, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1975)
- 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
- 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 exhaustion
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while enroute, a low fuel level annunciation occurred. The pilot subsequently prepared to divert to a nearby airport due to low fuel. Within 2 minutes the left engine shut down, followed by the right. The pilot asked air traffic control for vectors to the nearest airport. The sky conditions were clear with no moon, no horizon and no terrain feature visible. While approaching the airport at approximately 2,000 feet above the runway, the airport runway lighting turned off. The pilot was unable to turn the lights back on and subsequently used the terminal and ramp lights to maneuver the airplane to the runway. The airplane touched down and veered off the runway, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage.
The pilot reported to a first responder that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation and that he ran out of gas.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper fuel planning for a cross-country flight, which resulted in fuel exhaustion, a total loss of engine power and subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA125
- Event ID
- 20230313106880
- Case number
- WPR23LA125
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2023-03-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fc35250d3cc77bf75ac30927d469052c8cce6782ab8dea12dd00ba67781492f9; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:25:02.826Z.