The pilot reported that he departed with 14 gallons of fuel on board the Titan Tornado 912.
He diverted to an airport 15 miles away from the destination airport due to ground fog, and while en route, about 2 hours and 25 minutes after departure, the engine “died from lack of gas.”
He landed in a field near Corry, Pennsylvania.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing, left aileron, and empennage.
He estimated that the fuel tank had “maybe an 1/8 cup” and that a “tablespoon may be more accurate.”
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause: The pilot’s improper preflight fuel planning, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and the subsequent total loss of engine power.
NTSB Identification: GAA19CA015
This October 2018 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.
Few pilots actually, truly KNOW how much fuel they have onboard if the tanks are not completely Full.
Often they look at the gages, and then maybe take a look inside the tank on preflight, they see fuel, and assume the amount on the gauge is ‘close enough’.
I use a dipstick, which I calibrated myself, by adding fuel to an empty tank, and marking, in 5 gallon increments. This gives me a pretty accurate (within a gallon or two) fuel on board status.
You can also simply purchase clear acrylic tubes, calibrated for common aircraft fuel tanks, certainly the more common Cessna and Piper models. You dip these in the tank, place a finger over the open end, and the fluid level in the tube shows how many gallons in the tank. A generic version calibrated in inches is also available for aircraft not covered. Simplicity in itself! They’re also valuable for confirming fuel burn, measuring before, and after a flight and determining what your actual fuel burn is, for how you fly, and not what the ‘book value’ is. Book value is based on setting the power specifically and leaning the mixture accurately, with no indication of what lean setting was used other than “Best Power’. Having an accurate fuel burn rate, and accurate quantity (less unusable of course).
Of course, none of this matters to those few folks, who just “Know” what old Betsy can do, and of course always “Top Off” after every flight. Those guys never run out of gas, or actually know how close they’ve come either.
The peace of mind, provided by a little work, and an easy pre-flight check, is worth it!
I don’t know this airplane so I did some research on it. It holds a max of 15 gallons.
Cruise is supposed to be 4GPH. This should give 2.5 hours plus reserve (3.5 hours in this case). But I never found out what cruise is supposed to be (as in 65% or 70%, etc.).
So if this pilot ran this at full throttle, the fuel burn will probably be closer to 7GPH (100 HP * 0.0707, which is a guess on my part for max fuel at max HP). Obviously the pilot wasn’t running at 100% as that gives ~ 2 hrs tops to empty tank.
Just trying to figure out if there was some other problem here.
So, pilot flies to intended airport, and finds fog and so diverts. This shows they had enough fuel to complete the flight VFR. The diversion should have been within the 30 minute required reserve (given the distance stated by the pilot to the airport being diverted to).
Was this really poor pre-flight planning? None of the airports in the area, according to FF today, have ASOS/AWOS.