Piper PA-32-300 N722RM

Summary

On 28 March 2005 at about 15:00 local time, a Piper PA-32-300 registered N722RM was involved in an accident near Jeffersonville, Indiana, United States. 4 people were 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

28 March 2005 at 15:00

Classification

Accident

Location

Jeffersonville, Indiana, United States

Coordinates

38.3656, -85.7381

Aircraft

Piper PA-32-300

Registration

N722RM

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Jeffersonville → Kalamazoo

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

IMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

CHI05CA087

Nobody was injured.

The pilot's inadequate preflight of the aircraft by his failure to detect an open fuel drain which resulted in fuel starvation and the loss of engine power. Contributing factors were the pilot's failure to follow emergency procedures, low ceiling, fog and rain.

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

Read the full NTSB narrative

The rental airplane impacted terrain during a forced landing on a wet hay field after the airplane experienced a total loss of engine power during climb from the departure airport. The pilot stated that he preflighted the airplane in moderate rain while his family boarded the airplane, and the baggage was loaded. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed with ceilings of approximately 500 feet above ground level at the time of the accident. Following the loss of engine power, the pilot reportedly switched fuel tanks and changed mixture settings from rich to lean but was unable to restart the engine. He initated a turn back to the departure airport due to his concern of wooded terrain in the area he was flying over. When he broke out of the cloud base, he had about "20 seconds" to land the airplane on a field that he selected. He stated that his vision was "greatly" obscured by rain and fog and that trees at the end of the field appeared closer that he originally anticipated. The pilot then changed his landing field to an adjacent field where he landed and impacted terrain. The pilot stated that there would have been "little likelihood" of the airplane receiving any damage if he had not switched fields. Inspection of the airplane revealed that the left main fuel tank contained unusable fuel, and the left main fuel tank "quick drain" was open. The airplane's Pilot's Operating Handbook Emergency Procedures states: "If engine failure was caused by fuel exhaustion, power will not be regained after tanks are switched until empty fuel lines are filled, which may be up to ten seconds."

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.