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Atlas / NTSB / CEN22LA180

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN22LA180

2022-04-14 Huntsville, Texas, United States Airport · UTS Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N78096

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

GLOBE GC-1B

Year of manufacture

1946 · 76 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR IO-360 SER (300 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19860109

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AA9438

Registrant of record

BELL MICHAEL S

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

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

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that in cruise flight he positioned the fuel selector to the right auxiliary fuel tank and set a timer for 20 minutes. He practiced private pilot maneuvers and then proceeded to a nearby airport for touch-and-go landings. He did not switch the fuel selector back to the main fuel tank because he did not notice the timer. The pilot completed one touch-and-go landing and during the initial climb, the engine experienced a total loss of power. He pitched the nose of the airplane down for a forced landing and the engine regained power momentarily. The engine again experienced a loss of power, the airplane stalled, and impacted the ground adjacent to the runway resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. He stated that he should have refueled the airplane before the flight, so he did not have to worry about fuel management. 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).

  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Use of equip/system-Pilot
  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Pilot
  • Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Fluid management

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2022_CEN22LA180.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 (stall, 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 ↗