NTSB CAROL · Event
Event WPR20CA299
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's inadequate fuel planning, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion and a collision with trees and terrain.
Factual narrative
The pilot reported that during a cross-country flight at dusk, the airplane encountered greater head winds than planned. The pilot made several engine power and mixture adjustments to compensate for the increased wind velocity and to maintain altitude. About 15 miles prior to reaching the destination airport, the engine lost power. He attempted to troubleshoot the loss of engine power to no avail and initiated a forced landing. The airplane collided with trees and came to rest inverted. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings, the fuselage and empennage. The pilot believed that his fuel planning for the accident flight was insufficient, which resulted in fuel exhaustion. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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-Planning/preparation-Fuel planning-Pilot
- C Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Tree(s)-Effect on operation
- — Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Fluid level
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2020_WPR20CA299.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (fuel exhaustion). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- AOPA Air Safety Institute 2023 · Safety advisor
Safety Advisor: Fuel Awareness
AOPA Air Safety Institute safety advisor on preventing fuel-exhaustion and fuel-starvation accidents in general aviation. Covers pre-flight fuel planning, reserve requirements (14 CFR 91.151, 91.167),…
- arXiv 2022 · arXiv preprint
AirTrack: Onboard Deep Learning Framework for Long-Range Aircraft Detection and Tracking
Detect-and-Avoid (DAA) capabilities are critical for safe operations of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). This paper introduces, AirTrack, a real-time vision-only detect and tracking framework that res…
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Abstract
U.S. Civil Rotorcraft Accidents, 1963 through 1997
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recorded 8,436 rotorcraft accidents during the period mid - 1963 through the end of 1997.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Contractor Report (CR)
A study of carburetor/induction system icing in general aviation accidents
An assessment of the frequency and severity of carburetor/induction icing in general-aviation accidents was performed. The available literature and accident data from the National Transportation Safet…
- NASA NTRS 2018 · Other
Parachuting to Safety
NASA's Langley Research Center awarded Ballistic Recovery Systems, Inc., three Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts to research and develop a new, low cost, lightweight recovery system …
- Semantic Scholar 2017 · Article (Trials)
Effectiveness of two web-based cognitive bias modification interventions targeting approach and attentional bias in gambling problems: study protocol for a pilot randomised controlled trial
BackgroundDisordered gamblers have phenotypical and pathological similarities to those with substance use disorders (SUD), including exaggerated automatic cognitive processing of motivationally salien…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗