The student pilot was conducting a night, solo, cross-country flight, and while en route with the landing and taxi lights on, the cockpit panel lights on bright, and his cell phone and tablet charging from the electrical system, the Piper PA22 lost all electrical power, followed by the loss of all engine power.
The student cycled both the electrical system master switch and the engine magneto switch twice, but electrical and engine power were not restored.
He navigated to a dark area below the airplane’s flightpath hoping it was an open field, but the plane hit a heavily wooded area near Brownstown, Indiana, and then came to rest upright.
The student was not injured, but the airplane was destroyed.
The airplane’s electrical system was equipped with a master switch that, when turned on, routed all power through either a main or spare fuse.
Post-accident examination revealed that when the master switch was positioned to the spare fuse position, the electrical system would not turn on because the spare fuse had blown. The main fuse was intact, and when the electrical system was activated by toggling the master switch to the main fuse position, the electrical components powered on normally.
Based on the student’s account of the flight and the blown spare fuse, it is possible that, during the flight, the electrical load drew an excessive current through the selected spare fuse, which resulted in it blowing and interrupting electrical power.
The student’s reported inability to restore electrical power by selecting the main fuse with the master switch could not be duplicated during post-accident testing.
Further, post-accident examination of the engine did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
The investigation also determined that the student had not received a flight endorsement for the solo flight, so he should not have been conducting the flight. However, having an endorsement would not have better prepared the student to deal with the reported engine issue.
Probable cause: The total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined. Contributing to the outcome was the student pilot’s improper decision to conduct a solo cross-country flight at night, which resulted in the airplane being destroyed when it hit a wooded area that the student thought was an open field.
NTSB Identification: ERA19LA022
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.
Scott, That wouldn’t be safe. You’ll never find yourself inadvertently flying a tail wheel or multi engine aircraft, but through winds or planning issues, or many other reasons, could find yourself inadvertently flying at night. It has to be trained, just like a private pilot gets a certain amount of time under the hood. Just in case.
We’ll have to disagree. Going down at night is either pot error or an uncontrollable mechanical failure.
Unwanted night flight is pilot planning error and completely avoidable, as is scud running, fuel exhaustion, VFR into IFR. Those matters only require more conservative planning. Even inadvertently there would be far less probability than going down at night in the L.A. basin.
I appreciate your opinion and do think night flight is a good training asset. Unfortunately there’s only one way to accomplish that and is somewhat akin to spin training in a V35 Beech.
I actually used to frequently travel cross country at night. One plsne I used often was a 172. Friend wanted and purchased the plane and 4 hours later it broke an exhaust valve and blew the cylinder off in Denver. Fortunately it was day and close enough to Jeffco AP.
I’d like to add one to this. There was a cloud deck that was rather dark that parked itself over the area of my destination airport. It was summer. Ceiling was at or above 8000 MSL, vis > 10 miles. 50NM out I could see this, and as i got under the edge of it, it started getting quite dark and I had to turn on the nav lights and panel lights. By the time I got to my destination, all the airports in the area had their beacons on, not because they were IFR, but because it was so dark that ground vehicles were driving with their lights on (I fly Roads anyone?).
Since it was about 2 hours before sunset, this legally was not night flight. But for all intents a purposes it was night flight. This cloud deck went beyond the horizon at my altitude (6000) so there was no visible horizon and I was flying by the gauges (I was IFR anyhow).
This kind of thing does happen from time to time (I’ve experienced it more than once). What is a Student to do in this case? Your vis is >5 miles and a 180 will get you a visible horizon.
So, this pilot/ owner’s lack of knowledge of the electrical system cost him the aircraft.
And then turning the mags off to troubleshoot the electrical problem?
As an electrical engineer and pilot/owner, I have found that very few pilots understand the details of the operation of the electrical systems of the aircraft they fly….and few A&Ps as well.
During a seminar at our EAA chapter this question was asked; ‘what is the voltage of a fully charged 12 volt battery ?’ No one had the correct answer of 12.9 volts. [ +/- 0.1 volts]
The accident files have far too many stories that involve student pilots making obviously illegal (and sometimes fatal) choices- at least obvious to anyone who read the FARs at least once or twice.
A lot of them start of with the phrase, “A student pilot and passenger…” for example.
Makes me wonder if we shouldn’t be a little more thorough with the sections on ADM and FARs up front.
Look around…I think you’re seeing a changing culture.
A culture that’s now getting shot, run over, beaten and crashing planes. As is often the problem t’s not regs and more items on a checklist. It’s mentality deficiency.
I also think you now have an increasing number of CFIs that can’t gauge student thought pattern (the right stuff) and competence.
My opinion.
Not signed off for night flight. So, using all the lights on bright typically will cause one to become night blind. So you can’t see much outside the cockpit except for other lights.
Next, this plane has a 25AMP alternator if I remember correctly. So all the lights on, plus nav/com(s), etc., plus the extras that the pilot had plugged in, resulted in more demand than the alternator could supply. So all the lights go out and now your aux lighting is your phone?
There is a reason for a night X/C with instructor before sign-off for night flight. This flight demonstrated why one needs specific training for flying at night.
I own a stock 1956 Tri-Pacer. With everything turned on as described here, my experience has been the electrical system can’t keep up. Specifically, the landing/taxi lights. If they were the standard incandescent sealed beams, it would overpower the generator and gradually bleed the battery to death. On mine, with a freshly overhauled generator and everything else on (not considering the plugged in chargers) it wouldn’t keep up. I had to replace my landing/taxi lights with LED’s to make it acceptable.
I had checked the Q4509 landing light in my Cessna. I uses 9.5 amps at 14 volts.
I too changed to an led landing light, which is brighter and uses only 1.3 amps at 14 volts.
I also replaced the position lights with led, which dropped the load from 7 amps to 0.8 amps.
I expect the alternator to live longer with less waste heat from 14 amps less load.!
So much to say here, where does one start???
One going for sure. 4 feet either way would have been a different ending.
Also. I think night flight should be optional and an endorsement, like tail, sea, multi…
Not that it would change anything in this case.