NTSB CAROL · Event
Event WPR23LA293
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot’s inadequate fuel monitoring, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Factual narrative
The pilot reported being unable to land at the destination airport at night due to the runway lights not being operational. The pilot then diverted to two other nearby airports but was unable to identify either airport. During the process of trying to locate a runway the pilot did not adequately monitor the fuel onboard and all the fuel was consumed from the selected fuel tank, which resulted in a total loss of engine power. The pilot switched fuel tanks, but the engine did not restart. The pilot has no memory beyond that phase of the event. The airplane collided with trees and terrain, sustaining substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions 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-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Monitoring equip/instruments-Pilot
- — Environmental issues-Operating environment-Airport facilities/design-Runway lighting-Not specified
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-(general)-(general)-Pilot
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2023_WPR23LA293.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 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.
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