Skip to content

SEA87FA158

1987-08-06 · Las Vegas, Nevada, United States · Fatal · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport LAS

N51358 has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (VAN'S AIRCRAFT RV-12IS, built 2023), which was not involved in this event.

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

THE STUDENT PLT PLANNED A X-COUNTRY FLT FOR 3.6 HRS. AFTER 3.9 HRS OF FLT, FUEL EXHAUSTION OCCURRED AS THE ACFT WAS APCHG THE DESTN ARPT. THE PLT DECLARED AN EMERGENCY, BUT WAS UNABLE TO GLIDE TO THE ARPT. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE ACFT ON AN APCH TO A VACANT LOT WHEN IT COLLIDED WITH A POWER LINE, THEN IT NOSED OVER & IMPACTED THE TERRAIN IN A NR VERTICAL ATTITUDE. APRX 6 QTS OF FUEL WAS DRAINED FM THE FUEL SYSTEM. THE ACFT HAD A FUEL CAPACITY OF 26 GAL, OF WHICH, 22.5 GAL WAS USABLE. ACCORDING TO THE FLT MANUAL, THE ACFT HAD A CRUISE ENDURANCE OF 4.1 HRS AT 75% POWER WITH NO FUEL RESERVE. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1987_SEA87FA158.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Search this event elsewhere

External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (fuel exhaustion). All research papers