The flight was a demonstration flight for a prospective buyer of the Piper PA-24-250.
During the climb after completing a touch and go at the airport in Delta, Colorado, the engine lost power. The pilot changed the selected fuel tank and activated the fuel boost pump, however engine power was not restored.
He executed a forced landing to an open field. The fuselage sustained substantial damage.
The pilot reported he had visually checked the fuel level in each tank before the flight. The right main fuel tank was selected for the entire flight, and it was observed to be empty after the accident.
Probable Cause: Fuel starvation resulting in a loss of engine power.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This December 2021 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
Went down in a piper once myself, from fuel starvation. Did some touch and goes, topped off the fuel tanks before the main flight, did our normal preflight, then took off. Had just turned to approach heading for downwind climb out, and started to climb to altitude. Engine quit. Switched tanks, but it wouldn’t restart. Ended up going into the trees. After the NTSB inspection, they told us it had a new fuel bladder in the right wing that hadn’t been washed out good, and it had clogged the fuel filters and line with the preservative stuff they put in the bladder!
According to the report, there was only one pilot on board. Assuming the prospective buyer was going to use this plane for flight training, I wonder if the actions of this 15,000+ hour pilot changed his mind?
Old pilot here with with a number of ratings (including CFI), and what makes me blink is how our tribe of aviators seem to bark and yap about poor piloting when another pilot drops the ball and causes an unfortunate outcome… it’s human nature I guess, but let’s not be be so critical unless those who are critical walk on water. The hope is that none of us will ever do something that we shouldn’t have, but flying and odds being what they are (along with cause and effect and oversight) even the best of us can recall a few times after the fact that we could have done better, even though we came out smelling like a rose… and as a result we became better pilots. Just saying.
Do these idiots who “look into the tank and see fuel” not own a measured dip stick that tells them exactly how many gallons of fuel are in the tanks??? When I started taking lessons that was the first thing my flight instructor hammered into my head, stick the tanks!! My rule is, if I plan to do one touch and go then put the plane away I have topped off tanks. I won’t say that I might never wreck an airplane but if I do it won’t be because I ran out of fuel. There is absolute no excuse for it; none!!
That’s my thoughts exactly or at least a flash light
How much you wanna bet he’s not going to buy it?
This report doesn’t say anything about the left tank, which he said also had fuel prior to flight.
I’ll bet the plane is a lot cheaper now.
Shame to lose such a nice plane due to sheer stupidity
Dipping, if possible, doesn’t lie.
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I wonder if this boils down to “hoping to sell without buying a few gallons”, fuel starvations still just blow my mind, just can’t understand it with the way I do things.
I wouldn’t consider buying an aircraft from these folks, who can’t even be sure that there is fuel in the tank.
The claimed ‘work on the fuel transmitters’ should have ensured that the gauges read the approx. amount of fuel in the tanks….but I guess not ??
Another reason to walk away from these folks.!
Hmmm, owned by a landscape co. [ or was ! ]
So then if I was in a fuel critical situation and I run one tank dry , switch to other tank and run it dry , there may be more fuel in the first tank if it is the one that the return dumps into ? I know of several off field landings that wouldn’t have happened if there had been another 1/4 gallon or so.
To my knowledge, the fuel injection systems used on Pipers do not have a fuel return. I’ve flown behind several IO540s in Pipers and none of them have had a fuel return.
Looking up the specs for this aircraft, it has two 30 gal inboard fuel tanks, similar configuration to a PA28 Cherokee which had 25 Gal inboard tanks. Now, if it has the tabs in the tank as did my PA28-180, you know you have at least x gallons if the fuel is at the tabs or higher (based on what the tabs are for). But just eyeball and not being very familiar with this plane, you can’t tell.
Doing a test in a PA32-300 (Cherokee-6 with IO540) I ran a tip tank dry to see how long it would take to get the engine to restart (switching to a main) — Of course I did this at over 5000 MSL and was waiting for it to happen, so no surprise time. One will lose about 300′ of altitude before the engine kicks back in, and that is assuming you were trading speed for altitude.
Next, if properly leaned, prop set, etc., one can expect 14 GPH at 65% power. But for take-off that will be about 28GPH.
So yes, this was a fuel mismanagement problem. It wasn’t that they didn’t have enough fuel, it is he didn’t change tanks to the fuller one for the take off. Once that engine quit below 400 AGL, he didn’t have any choice but to land it off airport because he didn’t have enough speed to trade for altitude (time) for that engine to restart in my opinion.
Lastly, it is interesting that no one said how much fuel was in that other tank after the forced landing.
Some airplanes with multiple fuel tanks should be run-up before takeoff on each tank and then a main tank selected for last part of the run-up.
Many fuel pumps won’t clear carport.
The pilot must know were the fuel retunline goes. Some planes return to the tank in use and somde don’t.