CEN26LA194 · Lockwood AIR CAM
Lockwood AIR CAM · Accident: fuel exhaustion en route
From Dalhart Municipal Airport (DHT) to Pratt Regional Airport (PTT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA194
- 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
Lockwood AIR CAM
- Aircraft type
- Lockwood AIR CAM
- 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
- N32F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dalhart Municipal Airport (DHT), Dalhart, TXTo Pratt Regional Airport (PTT), Pratt, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 2000)
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the twin-engine experimental airplane departed on a cross-country flight with a full fuel load (28 gallons). After takeoff, he observed that the airplane had a 52 mph tailwind which resulted in a 150 mph ground speed at his cruise altitude of 11,500 ft. The pilot planned to make a fuel stop, but he recalculated the fuel required based on the airplane’s ground speed and concluded that the airplane could reach his intended destination for the day. The pilot reported that the airplane’s expected fuel consumption rate, for both engines combined, was 6 to 10 gallons per hour. The pilot reported that he expected the airplane would have 2 to 3 gallons of fuel remaining when he reached the intended destination.
About 2.5 hours after departure, and about 15 minutes from the destination airport, the left and right fuel tank gauges displayed about ¼ tank remaining (3.5 gallons each). However, about 5 to 10 minutes later, the pilot noticed that the fuel level remaining in the tanks decreased rapidly.
The pilot reported that both engines lost all power due to fuel exhaustion before the airplane reached the intended airport, and that he conducted a forced landing to a muddy field. Upon landing, the left wheel flange separated, and the fuselage and left wing were substantially damaged. The pilot admitted that the airplane did not have sufficient fuel to complete the flight, and there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate fuel planning, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA194
- Event ID
- 20260521203036
- Case number
- CEN26LA194
- 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: a73e6e730a401738b9b28f808ff73a771ae55f9635f159a2307b87bd1c69a175; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:32:13.799Z.