CEN26LA250 · Glasair I RG
Glasair I RG · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Rochester International Airport (RST) to Rushford Municipal Airport - Robert W Bunke Field (55Y)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA250
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
Glasair I RG
- Aircraft type
- Glasair I RG
- 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
- N141CG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rochester International Airport (RST), Rochester, MNTo Rushford Municipal Airport - Robert W Bunke Field (55Y), Rushford, MN
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On July 9, 2026, about 1805 central daylight time, a Glasair 1RG airplane, N141CG, sustained substantial damage when it was involved in an accident near Utica, Minnesota. The pilot received minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91 personal flight. The pilot reported that the flight was for the purpose of checking the electric pitch trim system of the airplane. While testing the system in flight, at altitudes between 2,000 and 3,000 ft msl, the engine lost power. At this time the pilot had the electronic flight information (EFIS) screen of his avionics suite displaying mostly flight information. When the engine lost power, the pilot switched the EFIS to the engine management page and it showed that the airplane’s header tank was empty. The pilot attempted to restore engine power but was unsuccessful. He executed a forced landing to a road. During the landing, while attempting to avoid obstacles along the roadway. The airplane went off the road and struck a culvert before coming to rest. During the forced landing the airplane sustained substantial damage to the forward fuselage. Discussion regarding the airplane’s fuel system with the pilot and with the original builder of the airplane revealed that the airplane had a single main wing tank, and a fuselage mounted header tank. Each tank was connected to a selector valve which determined which tank the engine would draw fuel from. In addition, there was a transfer pump installed that allowed pumping fuel from the wing tank to the header tank. Any overflow of fuel from the header tank would return to the wing tank. The original builder stated that it was possible to leave the transfer pump on at all times with the selector valve set to the header tank. The pilot stated that during the accident flight the transfer pump switch was in the “on” position and he verified this when the engine lost power. Once the engine lost power the pilot switched the fuel selector to the main wing tank and attempted to restart the engine without success. Further testing of the transfer pump is planned.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA250
- Event ID
- 20260714203383
- Case number
- CEN26LA250
- 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, coordinates. 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: dbcc5965a25f5ed24acacfb8edb9fd7e0033e1c10539d4f5474fce2282bd99be; retrieved 2026-09-17T05:15:37.966Z.