ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 156627
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| Date: | Saturday 15 June 2013 |
| Time: | 18:00 |
| Type: |  Cessna 175 Skylark |
| Owner/operator: | Private |
| Registration: | N9370B |
| MSN: | 55170 |
| Year of manufacture: | 1958 |
| Engine model: | Continental GO-300 SERIES |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 4 |
| Aircraft damage: | Substantial |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | Two miles west of Laughlin, near Needles, CA -
 United States of America
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Private |
| Departure airport: | Tehachapi, CA (TSP) |
| Prescott, AZ (PRC) | |
| Investigating agency: | NTSB |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
The private pilot was conducting a personal cross-country flight with three passengers on board. The pilot reported that, during cruise flight, the engine began to “sputter” and subsequently lost power. As the airplane began to descend, the pilot began to set it up for best glide airspeed to initiate an emergency landing. The airplane subsequently impacted desert terrain short of the intended landing site.
Postaccident examination of the airframe, engine, and fuel system revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. First responders reported seeing no visible signs of fuel nor smelling fuel around the airplane. Further, wreckage recovery personnel reported that there was no fuel in the fuel system. The pilot did not provide a statement about the airplane’s fuel quantity at the time of departure; however, the evidence indicates that fuel exhaustion caused the loss of engine power.
The investigation revealed that, although the airplane was manufactured with four seats, the airplane was only equipped with three seats: the pilot seat, the front passenger seat, and the rear passenger seat. Therefore, there were more passengers than available seats, which led to an adult and a child older than 2 years being seated together in the front passenger seat and sharing the seatbelt. According to federal regulations, an approved safety belt with an approved metal-to-metal latching device is required for each occupant 2 years of age or older; the adult passenger sustained serious injuries, likely because she was sharing the seat with the child. The rear seat, which was occupied by one passenger, was attached to the floor via a “homemade” mounting frame constructed with a welded hollow pipe structure that had mounting points to attach the seat; this structure failed during the impact sequence, which resulted in the passenger sustaining serious injuries. No approval paperwork for the modified seat installation was found during the investigation.
Probable Cause: A loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion as a result of the pilot’s inadequate fuel planning. Contributing to the severity of the front passenger’s injuries was the pilot’s decision to depart with more passengers than available seats, which resulted in an adult and a child passenger sharing a seatbelt. Contributing to the severity of the rear passenger’s injuries was the failure of the unapproved modified seat installation.
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
NTSB
FAA register: http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=9370B
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N9370B
Location
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 16-Jun-2013 03:04 | gerard57 | Added |
| 17-Jun-2013 19:07 | Geno | Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Registration, Cn, Operator, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Damage, Narrative] |
| 18-Jun-2013 21:44 | Geno | Updated [Source, Narrative] |
| 21-Dec-2016 19:28 | ASN Update Bot | Updated [Time, Damage, Category, Investigating agency] |
| 29-Nov-2017 08:46 | ASN Update Bot | Updated [Other fatalities, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
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