ANC23LA078 · Rhodes Steven D SR3500
Rhodes Steven D SR3500 · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Nowitna River, AK (private airstrip) to Nenana Municipal Airport (PANN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC23LA078
- 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
Rhodes Steven D SR3500
- Aircraft type
- Rhodes Steven SR3500
- 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
- N907W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nowitna River, AK (private airstrip)To Nenana Municipal Airport (PANN), Nenana, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2005)
- 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 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
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- 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 he noticed a slight rise in engine gas temperature (EGT) with a slight decrease in fuel consumption. Then engine power surged followed by a rapid decrease in power. The pilot performed a forced landing to the tundra and the airplane nosed over, resulting in substantial damage. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the fuel inlet screen into the fuel control unit was clogged, which prevented fuel from entering the engine. The pilot, who was the owner/builder, was unaware of the requirements to inspect and clean the fuel control inlet filter. The filter had been in operation for about 12 to 13 years before the accident. The installation service manual recommends that the owner/mechanic inspect and clean the fuel control inlet filter after break-in and at condition inspections or during annual inspections. The lack of maintenance of the fuel control inlet screen filter resulted in the screen becoming clogged and the subsequent fuel starvation.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. Contributing was the owner/builder’s inadequate maintenance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC23LA078
- Event ID
- 20230918193088
- Case number
- ANC23LA078
- 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 2023-09-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1f7570e24680f0c6b34b59f959eeab1fa4b4085f1efc85cdbc02625b8c4b9a35; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:07:58.178Z.