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Atlas / NTSB / WPR23LA074

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR23LA074

2022-12-17 Cottonwood, California, United States Airport · CA04 Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N9YA

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

GLASAIR GLASAIR

Year of manufacture

1986 · 36 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING O-320-B1A (160 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20081222

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AC6CA1

Registrant of record

CROSS TOM W

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s fuel mismanagement which resulted in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that, during the takeoff, the fuel tank selector was mistakenly set to the auxiliary tank. Five minutes later the auxiliary tank ran out of gas, which resulted in a total loss of engine power. The pilot switched to the main tank; however, there was insufficient altitude available for a recovery. The airplane struck terrain about 100 ft short of the runway, which substantially damaged the left and right wings. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident 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).

  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Action-Incorrect action selection-Pilot
  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Use of policy/procedure-Pilot
  • Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Fluid management

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2022_WPR23LA074.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 ↗