The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says fuel exhaustion led to a twin-engine Piper Navajo making an emergency landing on a road in Victoria, Texas on Wednesday.
Much better glider than I imagined. This pilot obviously landed without VFR reserves on the previous flight and then somehow forgot to refuel. Sounds like a company system safety and management problem as much as a pilot problem. I hope the D.O. Gets as much FAA scrutiny as the pilot.
The article says he had been aloft for several hours. Juan Browne shows that he had been aloft for as many as 5 hours. If that is true it doesn’t really sound like a scenario in which someone had forgotten to refuel after the previous flight.
Here we go again. Busy roads do not make good off-field landing sites. Thankfully no one was killed in this crash, but by the looks of the red vehicle pictured in the article that was by pure luck.
Gee, ya think? Alternative?
And yet, landing on a service road worked out BETTER than crashing into a school, a fuel farm, a full apartment building, or simply mowing down a dozen unprotected joggers in a park. Point is that it’s always going to be a crap shoot. Glad this one came our relatively well.
Look at the map of the area. The northeast side of the highway the pilot crashed on is devoid of schools, fuel farms, apartment buildings, parks… Chances of damaging the aircraft by landing in a field of scrub and mesquite trees: near certain. Chances of survival landing in that field: really good, especially since there was no fuel involved. Chances of injuring others in that field: near zero. The decision to land on the road decreased risk to the aircraft and the pilot, but significantly increased risk to persons on the ground. Again, like our previous discussion, this is a question of whether the risk transfer to persons on the ground is appropriate. We’re bound to continue to disagree on this, but unlike the previous incident we discussed, this one does not have the factor of uncertainty of not being able to see how good or bad other alternatives would be due to nighttime conditions.
Alternatives: Any of the unpopulated areas to the northeast of the highway.
Since WE are not from that area (and Google maps are too old to use) then WE have no idea what those so-called “open areas” are today. The pilot knew that area intimately and elected NOT to risk it there.
The odd thing is that the other side of the road was open rang/farmland.
I wonder what factual data makes you say that. While it’s certainly a possibility, nothing published so far makes that “obvious” to me.
There is NO, repeat NO excuse for ever running out of fuel.
Just off the top of my head, antique planes from the 70’s can have re-sealed tanks that are now under-sized, leaky gas caps, loose fuel lines, fuel venting, balky and/or leaky fuel selector valves, or even new engines that draw more fuel than “book value”, old fuel gauges that have lost whatever accuracy they (maybe) once had, Then there is the line boy that “tops off” your plane while it’s sitting on uneven ground.
Plenty of reasons why the old “owners handbook” numbers can be grossly optimistic.
Tell that to the four people that will spend Christmas in the hospital.
That;s very insensitive of you; you want random people to just show up at a hospital rooms to share their unsolicited opinions? These poor people will suffer enough of that this Christmas from “news people”.
The Navajo I flew with standard tanks only carries about 4 hours fuel no reserve at normal cruise (65% power). This plane has turbocharged Lycoming 540 engines. If this person flew it for 5+ hours without refueling he was lucky to have gotten airborne after a 5 hour flight. No excuses for running out of fuel.
The pilot chose to put innocent people in danger. If he wanted to land on a highway, he should have stayed away from the city.
2 readers asked about my VFR reserve comment. Before my comment I read two articles stating that the aircraft had just departed Victoria and was trying to return. My apologies. Just departed turns out to be 5 hours! Still the accident is an operational problem with the company as much as it is a pilot problem. I owned and operated PA-31’s, in 135 ops, for decades. The fuel gauges in these aircraft are notoriously faulty generally indicating more fuel than actual. Still no excuse to run out of fuel. I operated a B-200 for a number of years that had a log entry reading “replaced left outer wing panel Part no. 234567”. I was curious and looked up the part number expecting the panel to be an inspection panel. It was the entire left wing outboard of the attach bolts! Further investigation revealed that the B-200 had ran out of fuel and landed on a freeway (1982 ish) clipping a sign with the left wing. Also in Texas as I recall. How about the Lions and Bills game yesterday! Two great teams.
Jeffwelch said: “The fuel gauges …are notoriously.faulty…no excuse to run out of fuel.”
There ARE reasons to hit a woman, just as there ARE reasons to run out of fuel.
It just better be a good one.