| Crash location | 35.383333°N, 84.550000°W |
| Nearest city | Athens, TN
35.442851°N, 84.592990°W 4.8 miles away |
| Tail number | N711AH |
|---|---|
| Accident date | 05 Nov 2004 |
| Aircraft type | Franzreb Loehle 5151 Mustang |
| Additional details: | None |
On November 5, 2004 at 1330 eastern standard time, an experimental Loehle 5151 Mustang, N711AH, registered to and operated by a private pilot, collided into a fence on a farm in Athens, Tennessee. The personal flight operated under provisions of Title 14 CFR Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident and no flight plan was filed. The pilot suffered serious injuries. The airplane was substantially damaged. The flight originated from Riley Creek Airport in Kingston, Tennessee on November 5, 2004 at 1130.
The pilot was at cruise flight when the electric fuel pump failed. The pilot started to manually pump the fuel to the engine, trying to restart the electric fuel pump. After 10 minutes of manually pumping the fuel, the pilot elected to perform an emergency landing. The airplane collided with a fence during landing.
Post-examination of the airplane revealed flight control continuity from the control surfaces to the control yoke. The airplane had separated at the midpoint of the fuselage. The horizontal and vertical stabilizers were still attached to the empennage. The right wing was broken at the wing root and located underneath the airplane wreckage. The left wing was broken at wing root and resting on top of the nose section. The cockpit was crushed and the fuselage was perpendicular to the empennage section of the airplane. One of the propeller blades was broken. Further examination revealed an electrical fuel pump failure during the flight. The maintenance history of the electric fuel pump disclosed that it had accumulated 280 hours of total time since new.
The loss of engine power due to the electrical fuel pump failure, and fuel starvation.