PA28 Piper Cherokee - Lands in a Field -

MAY 6, 2014

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — The pilot of a Piper PA-28 Cherokee with engine failure successfully managed an emergency landing at about 5 p.m. Tuesday on a Greene Township, Pa., field.

Northern Maine resident Brady Henderson, 35, walked away from the incident. He said he was a bit sore.

Henderson said he noticed the single-engine plane, which he has owned for six weeks, was having problems about six minutes before putting it down in a field across the road from Franklin County Regional Airport in Chambersburg.

The Federal Aviation Administration was on the scene investigating the incident.

Henderson said he was in communication with air-traffic controllers in Harrisburg, Pa., and attempting to land on the Chambersburg airport’s tarmac. Unable to set up the approach appropriately, Henderson opted for the field as an alternative.

Henderson, who has been flying for several years, is licensed for visual flying and has practiced grass field landings previously. While visiting family in the area, he decided to do a practice flight Tuesday afternoon.

The plane remained intact after the rough landing. Crews with a pickup truck hauled it to the airport.

Henderson said he was unsure why the engine failed and would hire a mechanic to evaluate the aircraft.

Jennifer Fitch/Staff Writer HM MEDIA 

PA28 Piper Archer - Out of Fuel - Land on Road in Hungary

Nov 14 2010  - Piper PA28 Archer III Lands on a Road 

A very lucky day tonight for a pilot of a D-registered Piper Archer who safely performed an emergency landing on a highway on the outskirts of Brno around 18.00 local time (after dark).

The aircraft was en route from Germany to Hungary when its French pilot reported shortage of fuel to the air traffic control and notified them of his intent to land on a highway. The crew sustained no injuries, but the aircraft badly damaged one of its wings by hitting a street lighting poles.

PA28 Hits the Road - Out of Fuel

Out of Fuel, Pilot Lands on Highway

Flying Magazine

By Stephen Pope / Published: Jul 16, 2013

Related Tags: Pilots, Adventures & More, News

Courtesy of WSOC

Enlarge Photo

A North Carolina pilot late last night successfully landed his single-engine Piper Cherokee between cars on Highway 321 a few miles short of Hickory Regional Airport after running out of fuel.

The pilot, Eric Klein, told a reporter for WSOC that when he ran out of fuel he was too low to make the airport and so he decided to set his airplane down on the northbound lanes of the highway, using the lights from the cars as a guide.

“I was coming back from Clarksburg, West Virginia, and should have had three hours of fuel left in the plane,” Klein told the news station. “I had excessive fuel burn for some reason and only had two hours and 10 minutes, and ran out of fuel about five miles short of the Hickory Airport.”

Klein managed to land his airplane without hitting anything, bringing it safely to a stop on the road in Granite Falls, North Carolina, at about 11 p.m.

No NTSB Action 

159 Piper PA28's - Have Suffered Fuel Exhaustion in the last 20 yrs.

COVINGTON, TN -

(WMC) – The small plane that went missing around 11 a.m. on Wednesday was found crashed in a wooded area two hours later.

"I really don't understand how he could survive something like that. People are resilient. It just wasn't his time," said pilot Ben Baker, who helped in the search

According to the Tipton County sheriff, the pilot's name is Kent Wingate, 62. Firefighters on the scene say Wingate was unconscious, but his heart rate and blood pressure were stable. He was taken to Regional Medical Center in critical condition.

Wingate and his Piper Archer single engine plane were found near the Hatchie River in Lauderdale County.

The plane went missing as it prepared to land at Covington Municipal Airport. The airport's manager said that Wingate told him he was out of fuel and was going to land the plane; it never landed.
Images from Chopper 5 show the plane wedged in thick trees about two miles north of the airport. The crash site was located by tracking the emergency signal being transmitted from the plane.

"It was so thick back there in the area of the backwater ... Some of the slews, the foliage really thick," said Tipton County Sheriff Pancho Chumley.
A boater on the Hatchie River was flagged down by emergency personnel to take them across the river to the wreckage.


Wingate was flying into town for a funeral. He retired from the United States Air Force where he was an aeronautical engineer.

.According to our NBC affiliate, WDTN, Wingate lives in Xenia, Ohio, which is a suburb of Dayton. He works at Sinclair Community College.

"Kent Wingate is the chair of the Aviation Technology department," Sinclair spokesman Adam Murka said in a written statement. "

Copyright 2014 WMC Action News 5. All rights reserved.  

When Kent left Dayton Wright Brothers airport on Wednesday morning he had calculated his fuel to include the average 20 knot headwind to Covington, TN. 

He stated he would have 13 gallons left in his tanks when he landed which would provide approx. 1.5 hours of available fuel remaining. He topped of the airplane before departure. He flew 3.9 hours at an average fuel burn of 8.5 gallons an hour.

As anyone who’s flown the older Piper aircraft know, the fuel gauges are usually worthless below 1/2 tanks.

So what gives here - & why is this narrative is typical. 

159 Piper Pa28's & 18 Fatalities as a Result of Fuel Starvation

No AD's ........ No Action items - 

Is the FAA and NTSB doing their job or are they just on their way to the crash site to investigate,  According to the NTSB, why bother.

"I think that there are things that should never happen, really the easy things...," NTSB Chairperson Hersman said. "And I think that among the things in the bucket that are easy ... fuel starvation. How many times do our investigators need to investigate an accident like that."

Press Coverage of NTSB Chairperson Barbara Hersman 

If they do look and check,  chances are they would find a fuel sender like this one - and wonder why this belongs in an airworthy aircraft.