20201004016959A

Inspector?s statement

At the scene of the accident, the aircraft was facing south sitting on the left main landing gear and the aircraft fuselage on the right side. The nose gear and right wheel and brake assembly had been torn from the aircraft. The right wing tip had extensive damage from striking a ?t? Post. The right door had hole in the bottom aft area approximately two inches high and one inch wide. The fuselage just behind the right door had a hole torn in it approximately 3 and one half inches high and two inches wide. All three propeller blades where bent backwards with very little twisting of the blades. There was no noticeable fuel smell. There were no indications of fuel leaking from the aircraft. After applying power to the aircraft, the left gage momentarily showed full then dropped to empty. The right gage registered empty. Checked the drain valves on both tanks and no fuel came out of either drain valve.

Pilot in command stated they took off from mustang island airport and flew to stephenville clark field ksep. They took off from ksep headed for kxbp airport. Before takeoff the pilot and passenger discussed refueling but since the left wing tank showed over half full, they decided to go on to Bridgeport a 60 mile flight. About 10 miles from Bridgeport the plane began to sputter. He was on flight following so he informed ATC that they were having engine trouble. He had begun a long final for runway 36 and was already descending from 4500 down to 3000 feet. When the engine quit, he had already switched to the left tank and attempted to restart the engine with out success. He dropped the gear and put in 10 degrees of flaps then chose a pasture to land close by. He was about a mile from high lines that crossed their course. He crossed over a barbed wire fence and turned right (east) to be into the wind and uphill. They touched down the right main gear and it seemed to dig into the ground and spun them to the right and slid forward. He and the passenger where unharmed.

He stated that he had analyzed the situation and realized that he flew 640 nautical miles, not counting the take offs and landings. He was now convinced that he simply ran out of fuel. He said he did not check the fuel by hand or gauge stick to verify its accuracy and he should have known that the fuel had been expended, regardless of the gauge indicator.

The passenger stated, they left port aransas at 9 am on Sunday, oct 4 and flew to stephenville. When we left for Bridgeport we discussed filling up with fuel and we agreed that we only had 60 miles to go and the left tank was half full, so they would wait until we got home. When they started their decent into Bridgeport the engine sputtered a couple of times and the pilot told ATC that they were having some engine trouble, but he thought that we could make the runway. She could see the runway before they went down, so she knew they were close to the airport. Then she heard him say "we are going down".