20220226002619A

On February 26, 2022, at approximately 10:50 local time, the student pilot of N5208W, a PA28 aircraft, was turning base to final for runway 28 at ksav when he reported an engine failure and subsequently was unable to reach the airport. The student pilot was forced to ditch the aircraft in the Savannah river causing substantial damage to the aircraft upon impact with the water.

The student pilot had taken off for a local solo flight from ksav and flew to ktbr and performed two touch and go landings before returning to ksav. He initially obtained landing clearance for rwy 1 at ksav. He was broken off the approach by ATC while on short final, approximately 200', and instructed to enter downwind for rwy 28. Student pilot climbed back to pattern altitude and entered downwind for 28. While on downwind, ATC instructed the student pilot to make a right 360 turn. After the turn, ATC extended the pilot's downwind leg. ATC then called the pilot's base turn. After making the turn to base, the pilot experienced a loss of engine power. He stated it wasn't a complete loss of power and the propeller never stopped, but it was a significant power loss and he started to descend rapidly. The pilot stated he didn't have time to run any checklists and declared mayday on the radio and determined the best landing spot was the river.

The aircraft was recovered from the river bed on 03/04/2022. The fuel selector was observed to be in the "right tank" position. An engine inspection and tear down was performed by a Lycoming ASI and FAA airworthiness ASI. No abnormalities were found.

Based on fuel receipts submitted by the operator, the accident aircraft was last fueled on 02/23/2022, and the vendor stated the aircraft was "topped off". Based on submitted dispatch records by the operator, the aircraft flew a total of 5.3 hours between the last known fuel top off and the accident site. Hobbs reading at last refuel was 760.7. Hobbs reading at aircraft recovery was 766.0 records also showed the aircraft did 5 take offs and full power climbs on a previous flight and 4 on the accident flight. The aircraft fuel capacity is listed as 50 gallons. Based on tcds fuel flow of 9GPH, 47.7 gallons of fuel burned since the tanks were last known to be topped off, and 2 gallons of unusable fuel per the tcds, this would leave the aircraft with empty tanks at the time of the accident. Using 8.5 gph of 45.05 gallons burned since the tanks were last to be topped off and adding 2 gallons unusable fuel, leaves approximately 3 gallons total, which would correspond with the FAA airworthiness inspector's observation after recovery that he observed a mixture of fuel and water in the left tank and mostly water observed in the right tank, and the fuel selector was found to be selected to the right tank. No fuel leak was found to be observed by the recovery dive team nor the FAA inspector on scene. Contributing to the accident was the fact that the fuel gauge stick that is typically used by the operator to determine fuel level, was reported to be broken and thus not used. Fuel level was reported to be checked by the student pilot visually by looking in the fuel tanks, but video surveillance reported to be reviewed by NTSB iic showed that the student pilot did not check the fuel tank levels visually during his pre-flight check. The student pilot's CFI reported that she checked the fuel level visually prior to the accident flight but according to dispatch records and fuel flow calculations, her estimated fuel level from visually checking the fuel tanks were inaccurate. Also possibly contributing was the student pilot's failure to select the fuel selector to the proper/fullest tank.