The pilot reported that, while conducting the preflight, he mistook the voltmeter for the fuel gauge on the Evektor Aerotechnik SPORTSTAR.
The first leg of his flight was uneventful, however, on the return flight, the engine started to sputter, then experienced a total loss of power.
He navigated toward a nearby airport. He noted that, as he approached the airport, it became apparent he would not make it to the airport.
He then elected to land on a field near the south end of the airport in Tracy, California. During landing the left wing hit a tree.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and horizontal stabilizer.
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 fuel planning, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion and a subsequent emergency landing and collision with a tree.
This July 2019 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.
Bad design? Maybe. But this points to the planning on the part of the pilot. Fuel guages are ‘wags’ in any small aircraft I’ve ever flown in 40+ years, even our 182 with brand new fuel senders.
If you’re going to fly, you better know how much fuel you have at startup and how much your flight is going to need/how long the fuel you have will last.
There are old pilots and brainless pilots, but no old-brainless pilots. It’s hard to imagine being that clueless piloting a vehicle that can take your life in a split second.
Deciding which is more difficult:
Reading a volt meter marked … E 1/2 F
or
a fuel gauge marked …. 0 4 8 12 16…and possibly with red and green markings.
Lot to contemplate there!
I see a lot of excuses for the pilot and poor ergonomics. Amazing! Bottom line is that the pilot was stupid.
No matter what the gauge looks like. The basic understanding of fuel available for any given flight is a must know, positively identifiable number every pilot should be able to secure with proper training.
This person either was not trained properly to begin with or has become arrogant and needs to be grounded until retrained properly.
But then again, since he survived this example of improper execution of skill set they won’t take for granted what loss of power does to ones mindset. Lucky person they are!!!
Found an image of the panel on the aircraft salvage website. It was easy to see how the voltimeter and fuel gage could be confused.
Too bad the Docket excluded a photo of the panel. It’s hard to understand how a voltmeter and fuel gauges would be confused… BUT, the penalties of lousy ergonomics aren’t experienced by panel designers, just pilots. That’s an equally plausible explanation for confusing one gage/meter symbol for another. 4.7 hours in the aircraft should have remedied confusing engine instruments… but maybe not. While this aircraft had fixed gear, a lot of retracs got new props and engines because of similar switches for landing gear and flaps. Ergonomics wins a lot of contests in the cockpit (henpit and flight deck too).
If it was their analog cockpit then it is several rows of identical gauges, easy to get them confused. I would call that a bad design.