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Atlas / NTSB / ANC12CA112

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ANC12CA112

2012-09-23 Fairbanks, Alaska, United States Airport · AK7 None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N4483M

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

PIPER PA-12

Year of manufacture

1947 · 65 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING 0-235 SERIES (115 hp)

Seats / Engines

3 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19560427

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A56B22

Registrant of record

LORRING DAVID W

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s improper fuel management, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.

Factual narrative

The pilot was in level cruise flight when the airplane’s engine lost power, resulting in an off-airport emergency landing. During the emergency landing, the airplane nosed over, and sustained substantial damage to the rudder. The pilot stated that he had exhausted all the fuel out of the right tank. When the engine lost power, he switched to the left fuel tank, but could not restart the engine. The airplane was in level cruise flight when the engine lost power, resulting in an off-airport emergency landing. During the emergency landing, the airplane nosed over and sustained substantial damage to the rudder. The pilot stated that he had exhausted all the fuel from the right tank. When the engine lost power, he switched to the left fuel tank but could not restart the engine. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Use of equip/system-Pilot - C
  • C Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Fluid level - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2012_ANC12CA112.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (fuel starvation). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗