Event WPR24LA048

Factual narrative

About four hours into the repositioning flight, and about six miles from his intended destination, the pilot contacted the tower controller and was informed that the airport was under instrument flight rules (IFR) conditions, and that he was not cleared to land. The pilot made the decision to maneuver to the southeast to ascertain whether they should return to their home airport or land at a nearby airport and wait for the weather to clear. Shortly after departing the area enroute to an alternate airport, the airplane lost engine power. The pilot promptly attempted to restart the engine; however, his efforts were unsuccessful. The pilot subsequently executed a forced landing into a lake resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. He reported that there was no engine roughness or warnings before the engine quit, and it sounded as if the airplane ran out of fuel. He reported that he departed with 26.1 gallons of fuel and, according to the inflight computer, had about 5.72 gallons of remaining fuel when they arrived at the destination airport. In the recommendation section of the NTSB Accident/Incident Reporting Form 6120.1, the pilot listed ways that the accident could have been prevented, to include not relying on fuel management systems. 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).

• — Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Fluid management
• — Personnel issues-Task performance-Planning/preparation-Fuel planning-Pilot
• — Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Pilot
• — Environmental issues-Physical environment-(general)-(general)-Contributed to outcome