Piper PA-32-260 N3260W

Summary

On 14 May 2004 at about 12:51 local time, a Piper PA-32-260 registered N3260W was involved in an accident near New Bern, North Carolina, United States. One person was on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

14 May 2004 at 12:51

Classification

Accident

Location

New Bern, North Carolina, United States

Nearest airport

Craven County Regional (EWN)

Coordinates

35.0728, -77.0400

Aircraft

Piper PA-32-260

Registration

N3260W

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Mebane → Beaufort

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

ATL04LA117

Nobody was injured.

The pilot's inadequate pre-flight planning which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

According to the pilot, he departed a grass airstrip which had no fuel available en-route to Michael J. Smithfield in Beaufort, North Carolina. The pilot felt that the fuel gauges were unreliable and used a home made dipstick to dip the fuel tanks. He reported that he had 35 gallons of fuel onboard. From previous flights the pilot estimated that 17 gallons of fuel was all that would be required to make the trip. The pilot stated that he had recently had a new engine installed with instructions to operate it with the mixture in the full rich setting during the break-in period, so the flight was conducted with the mixture set in this position. He said that unexpected headwinds were encountered at his cruising altitude of 5,500 feet. He stated that he was originally on the left main tank when the engine sputtered and quit, at this point after checking the fuel gauges, he switched to the right main tank and called air traffic control at Cherry Point, North Carolina for flight following to Craven County Airport in New Bern, North Carolina. After about three minutes of operation on the right tank, the engine began sputtering and quit, the pilot then switched the fuel selector to each of the four tanks individually but was unable to restart the engine. The New Bern tower had authorized an emergency landing on any runway and had alerted the airport fire and rescue vehicles. During his descent the pilot raised his flaps from the approach setting to zero, this resulted in a greater sink rate. Unable to make the runway, the airplane contacted the downhill side of a knoll at 100 mph, and bounced 195 feet where it contacted the ground and stopped short of runway 04. The pilot was uninjured and during a subsequent interview he readily admitted that the engine was running fine when it lost power and that he ran out of fuel. The pilot had over-flown several airports where additional fuel could have been purchased. Post- accident examination of the airframe did not reveal any flight control anomalies.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.