NTSB: ‘Fuel exhaustion’ cause of June 2025 Kansas plane crash on top of airport roof

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The June 2025 crash of a twin-engine small plane on top of a hangar building at New Century Airport in Gardner, Kansas, was caused by fuel exhaustion.

That’s the conclusion from the National Transportation Safety Board’s final report, released last week.

Early in the afternoon on June 16, 2025, a 73-year-old Lee’s Summit man, operating as the flight instructor, and a 30-year-old Arkansas woman, operating as the “pilot receiving instruction,” were approaching the airport following the flight in a Beech E90 aircraft.

As the pair turned to the base leg of the final approach, the plane had decelerated below the normal airspeed. The flight instructor told the pilot receiving instruction to increase engine power, but that caused the aircraft to yaw left.

Believing the left engine had lost fuel, the flight instructor took control of the aircraft and, despite his belief that they could clear an upcoming obstacle, the plane impacted the hangar and came to rest on the roof.

No serious injuries were reported to the occupants of the aircraft or to bystanders on the ground.

The aircraft itself suffered “substantial” damage to the lower fuselage. Both wings and the right engine had separated from their mounts.

Investigators discovered that just three ounces of fuel remained in the plane’s left fuel tank, and just 30 ounces of fuel remained in the right fuel tank.

The report says that investigators were unable to determine how much fuel the plane originally took off with, as the accounts of the flight instructor and the pilot receiving instruction differed.

The aircraft's flight manual prohibits takeoffs when the amount of fuel in the “yellow band” of the fuel indicator, which signifies less than 260 pounds of fuel remaining.

According to the report, the flight instructor estimated that the 16-minute flight between Butler, Missouri, Municipal Airport and New Century Airport called for 135 to 200 pounds of fuel. In the report, the flight instructor told investigators he believed the "fuel tank gauges were inaccurate, which resulted in fuel exhaustion to the left engine."

Zach Martin

The NTSB determined the probable cause of the accident to be:

“The flight instructor’s inadequate fuel planning that resulted in a loss of engine power to the left engine due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor’s inadequate supervision of the flight that resulted in diminished airplane performance during the go-around.”

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