The private pilot was conducting a cross-country flight in a Diamond DA20-C1 without the owner’s permission.
While en route, he reported to air traffic controllers that the engine had lost power and that he did not think he would be able to glide to the destination airport.
He also said that it was dark and that he could not see anything below him.
He made a forced landing in a field near Waskom, Texas, which was 6.9 miles east of his destination. The forced landing resulted in substantial damage to the airplane. No fuel was found in the fuel tanks.
Probable cause: The pilot’s decision to operate the airplane without the owner’s permission and his lack of preflight planning, which resulted a total loss of engine power due fuel exhaustion.
NTSB Identification: CEN16LA018
This October 2015 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.
Well gbigs, when we make you King, you can take care of that idiot problem.
Always remember to check that you have adequate fuel when ever you steal an airplane.
There’s your tip for the day.
You’re welcome.
The FAA needs to start yanking certs for ANY pilot that runs out of fuel.
Grand theft, Airplane seems to be the issue, not “running out of gas”. Car thieves run the tanks dry all the time, they just don’t crash from lack of fuel. It’s usually speeding, reckless driving, fleeing from police, drug induced stupors, etc. And their stupidity doesn’t make the NTSB radar. Does “Colton-Harris” ring a bell for you? Or the drunk CFI, with two passengers aboard on a sight seeing trip, who flew into the side of Mount Si just a few miles east of Seattle, WA just five short years ago? It helps us understand the real issues, when we read the ‘rest of the story’ before getting excited about the misleading headline.
gbigs:
I hate it when people do stupid things and make the rest of us look bad, cause my insurance rates to be higher than they should be, cause Life Ins. companies to exclude flying, but not motorcycle driving (I used to race bikes, do not get me started on the idiotic driving I see on Interstates).
However, there are people who are mathematically challenged. And that may not show up until they are doing logical type problems. So, my plane holds x gallons. I am flying from A to B and that distance is 350NM. It will take me y amount of time to get there, baring me getting lost once or twice. So, my cruise GPH * 1.2 should be what I plan on (to account for take-off and climb) and so x / (cruise GPH * 1.2) = hours of flight. Now for FAA regs, that number minus 1 hour (night, day, IFR, I don’t care, I want an hour of reserves) tells me if I can make that trip without landing to take on more fuel.
Somehow people can’t seem to do the math correctly. Others don’t understand that if they push the cruise to higher power, they are burning more GPH and shortening their time in the air faster than they are covering ground (especially true on injected engines w/ CS prop).
How do you propose one fix this problem when we do not have fuel gauges that are required to read accurately (part 91) unless and until the tank(s) is(are) empty?
Fuel exhaustion is a wholly preventable disaster.
For those without reliable fuel gauges they MUST dip the tanks prior to flight. For those planning a long cross country they MUST plan fuel stops leaving a required reserve prior to reaching each stop. And when weather is an issue those reserves are even larger.
Anyone unable to do the ‘math’ as you suggest does not belong in the air at all.
It’s long overdue time for the FAA to start punishing those who demonstrate an inability to fly with the proper amount of fuel so they can’t hurt themselves or others.
I’d say that about 10% of the time it is NOT preventable, because the pilot(s) does not know they have a problem (ADM issue?).
I’m not going to get into all the ways that one can run out of fuel, or effectively run out of fuel and not recognize they had a problem. But *leaks* do happen and tanks do get blocked (C150/C152, had it happen in both).
Not everyone who “runs out of fuel” should have to do a 44709 (709) check ride, but it might be enough to stop the complacency for those who somehow don’t get fuel management or ADM.
I agree.
Yup gigs just what we need is stupid people telling the FAA to be more of a asshole than what they already are.
This sounds like an Insurance issue, Owner getting off the hook
Hang on a minute. Just what exactly does, “without the owner’s permission” mean? Please elaborate. Did he steal the plane? To me, this is the most fascinating part of the whole story.
I totally agree. These write-ups all start to sound alike after a while, so the dramatic twist of someone taking the plane without permission really sparked my curiosity. Please do elaborate!
I suggest you go to the FAA Docket, then search news reports using Google and key words like “airplane crash on [date] at [nearby city]” The back story is pretty easy to locate for most of these reports with the irrelevant and misleading teaser headlines like this one has.
From the full report: “The pilot was placed under arrest.”
Fascinating ……. local law enforcement arresting a pilot for what? Running out of fuel or using an aircraft without permission?
I’m intrigued by stories where local law enforcement gets chuffed up and arrests a pilot for an infringement. Like the Cherokee pilot who errantly flew into the airspace over the Reagan Ranch when he was the President (not home at the time) and they tracked him and ordered him to land and he came into SNA. Local police hauled him out of his plane, put him in a room and beat the crap out of him – he was in a cast for eight months after the beating.
What exactly does “without the owners permission” mean? Well…what it means exactly is “without the owners permission”! What does taking your car “without your (the owner) permission” mean? Legally speaking? IT’S CALLED “GRAND THEFT!” It doesn’t matter if it’s a car, plane, truck, locomotive, motorcycle. It’s all called “grand theft.”
“The pilot was placed under arrest” per the report. Gee, wonder what THAT could mean? It couldn’t be because he committed a felony, now, could it?