NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
DA20 pilot flying a night cross country training flight reported unexpected headwinds resulted in them running out of fuel, so they landed on a highway. No damage to aircraft, and they were towed to the nearby airport.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narrative
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
Person A flight planned a night cross country to ZZZ1, ZZZ2 and back to ZZZ. I landed in ZZZ1, and financially couldn't afford anymore than the legal minimums to complete the leg back, 20 gallons. The leg to ZZZ2 went as planned. However [during] the leg from ZZZ2 to ZZZ, noticed my head wind component doubled. This caused a forced off airport landing on a highway. Myself and the aircraft suffered zero damage. I called Person B and he dispatched an employee to come and tow me 4 miles to the airport down the road.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Aircraft Equipment Problem
- Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural
- Inflight Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Aircraft · Human Factors · Weather
- Primary Problem
- Aircraft
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.