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Atlas / NTSB / ERA24LA240

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA24LA240

2024-06-01 Zebulon, North Carolina, United States Airport · 7NC5 Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N7650V

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

AERO COMMANDER CALLAIR A-9B

Year of manufacture

1968 · 56 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING IO-540 SER (300 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19930712

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AA5687

Registrant of record

NORTH CAROLINA SOARING ASSOCIATION

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

A total loss of engine power while maneuvering due to fuel starvation.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that he departed on the glider tow flight with the airplane’s left fuel tank completely full, and between “1/4 and 1/2 a tank” in the right fuel tank, which was selected for the flight. The pilot successfully released the glider at 3,000 ft msl and entered a left, spiraling descent. At 2,800 feet, “the engine shut down (due to fuel). This has happened previously when the bank angle is steep enough and the tank low enough that the fuel does not reach the fuel pickup.” The pilot leveled the wings, but engine power did not resume. The airplane lacked the glide performance to return to the departure runway, or the pilot’s selected forced landing site. The pilot did not remember the accident landing which resulted in substantial damage to the airplane’s fuselage and both wings. The airplane’s fuel system was compromised and its postaccident fuel state could not be determined. 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
  • Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Fluid level

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2024_ERA24LA240.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 ↗