The pilot reported that the Grumman American Corp. AA-1C was last refueled and flown about a month before the day of the accident.
He added that, on the morning of the accident, he believed the plane still had about 17 to 18 gallons of fuel for the flight.
He mentioned that the airplane’s fuel float gauges were not accurate, so he looked inside of the left fuel tank from the filler cap and observed fuel. He did not check the right fuel tank because the style of tank restricted his view of any fuel.
He departed the airport with the left fuel tank selected. After practicing standard maneuvers, the engine hesitated for a second.
He switched to the right fuel tank, which resolved the issue, but he turned back toward the airport.
About a minute later, he switched to the left fuel tank and continued to fly at full power, which led him to believe fuel was in that tank. One to two minutes later, he switched back to the right fuel tank and climbed to 8,000′, circled the town once, and then proceeded back toward the airport. The engine then suddenly lost power.
The pilot attempted emergency procedures and troubleshooting to no avail. He found a suitable field for the emergency landing near Hemet, California. During the landing roll on the soft, dry, and rocky terrain, the airplane nosed over and then came to rest inverted.
Recovery personnel removed a small amount of fuel from the left auxiliary fuel tank, but the right auxiliary fuel tank and the main fuel tanks were empty.
There were no observable breaches in the fuel tanks nor smell of fuel at the accident site.
Given the pilot knew the airplane’s fuel gauges were not accurate, he should have ensured that the airplane had sufficient fuel for the flight. His failure to do so led to the subsequent exhaustion of the fuel supply and total loss of engine power.
Probable cause: The pilot’s failure to ensure that sufficient fuel was available for the flight, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
NTSB Identification: WPR17LA018
This November 2016 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.
This incident is covered by a little bit of aviation wisdom called The Three Most Worthless Things To a Pilot. That is The Runway Behind You, The Sky Above You and last but not least, The Fuel in the Gas Truck (or in the storage tank for fuel yourself setups). So always start your takeoff at the very end, Altitude is precious so get all you can as soon as you can and always start a flight with the tanks full. Those three guides could save a lot of good airframes, and Lives!
Sarah, I’d have to respectfully disagree with you. My 185 hauls 84 gallons of fuel – enough for 7 hours in the air. But why on earth would I fill the tanks for a 30-minute flight to the other side of the mountains? I’d much rather have the take off and climb performance that is associated with a lighter aircraft. And based on your comment about getting as much altitude as possible, I guess you would want me to climb to 14,000 as quickly as possible to get over there?
Guidelines are fine – a little bit of common sense is better.
Agree. During a busy instructional day, full tanks would easily be adequate for 2 or 3 lessons saving a lot of time. For Part 135 flights we had to regularly download, and I would estimate close to 100% of airline flights are not topped off. It costs them a lot of money to carry unnecessary fuel. What we keep seeing in these baffling reports is lack of minimum requirements.
The bad gauging is in the head. Gauge or not, It takes a complete idiot to take to the skies without knowing sufficient fuel is on board. The only thing that will stop this foolishness is to remove their license unless unavoidable circumstances can be proven.
Seems to me that running out of fuel in an otherwise perfectly good aircraft would be a flagrant violation of “careless and reckless”. Is any enforcement action ever taken against these idiots?
Sarah: I couldn’t agree with you more! For months we have been dealing with reported GA pilots being sloppy(to say the least) with the issue of onboard fuel quantities. Anyone from the general public who reads this column must think we are a bunch of reckless idiots. The time has come for the FAA to take action to end this senseless loss of life and aircraft.
Here we go again, another pilot who knows (or thinks) the fuel gauges are not accurate but still goes flying without assuring that he does have full tanks. The only way to know that is to have them filled right then, before going flying. Yes the AA-1 has an odd fuel system (stored in the tubular wing spar) that makes it impossible to spot the fuel level unless the tank is full so filling both tanks should be standard procedure for all flights. So why does he not return to the airport when his fuel state becomes questionable? Is it possible that he was running off of the fuel in the lines when he went back to the Left momentarily and then switching back to the right proceeded to drain that tank as well? There is a company called CiES which makes float type fuel senders that are supposedly a lot better than anything the original manufactures installed. Maybe it is time to put an AD onto all those old float sensors and if they do not work mandate a replacement. Another good question is how do they pass their Annual without having a properly working fuel gauge system? A bad tachometer would probably get flagged so shouldn’t such a critical instrument indicating how much fuel the aircraft has on board be flagged as well if not working and accurate? We see case after case where the pilot ran out of fuel so I would think the NTSB would demanding the FAA do something about bad gauging in the fuel system.