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Atlas / NTSB / WPR21LA342

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR21LA342

2021-09-13 Palo Alto, California, United States Airport · PAO Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N162DF

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BEECH 58P

Year of manufacture

1982 · 39 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR TSIO-520 SER (300 hp)

Seats / Engines

6 seats · 2 engines

Last airworthiness date

19900730

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A0F96D

Registrant of record

FAFORD AVIATION LEASING CO

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The fuelers addition of the incorrect fuel to the fuel tanks which resulted in a total loss of engine power.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that, shortly after takeoff, about 500 ft above the ground, both engines lost power. A forced landing was subsequently initiated to an open area. During the landing, the left wing collided with a wooden post and was substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preacccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane was fueled before the flight. The fueler reported that he incorrectly fueled the airplane with Jet A fuel instead of Avgas. He added that he did not notice the “Avgas only” label adjacent to the fuel port, and that he did not follow the company’s fueling checklist while fueling the accident airplane. 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-Action/decision-Action-Incorrect action performance-Ground crew
  • Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Fluid type

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2021_WPR21LA342.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. 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 ↗