This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
During flight on a practice VFR/VMC approach, the Piper PA28’s engine began sputtering.
I swapped fuel tanks and it fixed the issue, but I immediately began making my way to the nearest airport (ZZZ about 10 nm from our location).
Roughly 5-10 seconds later, the engine began sputtering again. I swapped the tanks again, and identified a location to set it down. A few seconds after swapping fuel tanks for the second time, the engine quit.
The auxiliary pump was on before the first instance of engine sputter and remained for the remainder of the flight.
Once the engine quit and I realized I was not going to make ZZZ, I advised ATC on XXX.YYY (ZZZ Approach). I advised Approach I was over the town of X and was going to set it down on a road in town. It was the only road that had enough lamp posts to where I could actually see the road. I executed the landing with no power.
There was no damage done to any property or the aircraft, and there were no injuries or deaths.
The conditions the night of the off-field landing were night time (approximately three hours after sunset), winds from the south around 5 kts, 0% illumination with the moon still below the horizon at the time of the landing, and clear skies.
The POH of the aircraft flown states at 75% power at the altitudes I was flying the aircraft should have been burning 10.5 gallons per hour. The 48 gallons total usable fuel capacity of the aircraft allows for approximately 4.5 hours of flight time before empty.
We took off with full fuel. We ran out of fuel at 3.5 hours of Hobbs times.
At the time of the engine stoppage, we should have had approximately 10 gallons/1 hour of fuel remaining.
A new engine had just been installed on the aircraft. It had already flown on the new engine for approximately two to three hours when I was dispatched the aircraft for my flight. There was no fuel leak identified during the pre-flight or reported from the prior users of the aircraft.
Primary Problem: Ambiguous
ACN: 1836832
CAUTION Guys… this was a rental…
“… A new engine had just been installed on the aircraft. It had already flown on the new engine for approximately two to three hours WHEN I WAS DISPATCHED THE AIRCRAFT FOR MY FLIGHT. There was no fuel leak identified during the pre-flight or reported from the PRIOR USERS of the aircraft.
Pilots “fuel totalizer” – (brain) malfunctioned. Having suffered a similar event in my youthful aviation days, we learn from our mistakes, if we live to tell the tale. Hope others enjoy the story and learn from it. By sharing we open ourselves up to the self-righteous to criticize us, but then there are those that “have” and those that “haven’t” and the “haves” outnumber the “haven’ts” 9 to 1. (For those that haven’t experienced a self-induced learning experience, your day will come!)
“The hatch just blew!”
Not sure why any value in this post without FAA/NTSB report on why this happened. My bet would be fuel exhaustion and a NASA report for CYA.
SOUNDS like fuel exhaustion. A lot.
Lets look at this flight;
– A new engine with 2-3 hours on it, so probably having to run a rich mixture and high power….so, maybe a bit more than 10.5 gph, maybe 11-12 gph if rich.
– the wisdom of flying this new, unproven engine at night ?
[ engines are the most unreliable during the first 100 hours of use…]
– I’ll bet that the fuel gauges worked and were showing close to ‘ E ‘ .!
[ they are required to be accurate when there is no usable fuel… at ‘ E ‘.]
So, was this another stupid pilot trick ?
at least he landed the aircraft safely, no damage.
Agree. Endurance numbers apply only if the engine is leaned properly and that is noted in POH’s, so be sure to include some good fudge factors.