Aftermath: How Much Fuel, Really?

Peter Garrison

Wednesday, September 09, 2015 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

A King Air crashed fatally due to fuel exhaustion after the pilot, alerted by low fuel pressure, attempted an emergency field landing but stalled during an evasive maneuver.
The accident was primarily attributed to the pilot's reliance on a faulty fuel totalizer, which incorrectly indicated 123 gallons remaining despite dry tanks, likely due to improper or inadvertent resetting.
The pilot's habit of adding only minimal fuel for short flights, rather than topping off, prevented consistent totalizer recalibration and contributed to the significant discrepancy between reported and actual fuel levels.
The NTSB emphasized the critical importance for pilots to cross-reference all available fuel indicators (gauges, totalizer, and manual calculations) and regularly top off tanks to ensure accurate fuel state awareness.

See a mistake? Contact us.

The King Air had been airborne for just 30 minutes, en route from Pine Bluff to Bentonville in Arkansas, when it began its descent from 16,500 feet. The weather was clear, and the 3,400-hour private pilot, 72, was on VFR flight following with Razorback Approach at Fort Smith.

Nine minutes after leaving 16.5, he told the controller that he wanted to change his destination to Fayetteville.