Teacher, student in Southern State emergency landing didn't manage fuel properly, NTSB report says

A student pilot and his flight instructor who made an emergency landing in February of a single-engine Piper Cherokee Archer on the Southern State Parkway in East Farmingdale did not exercise proper “fuel management” in failing to switch fuel tanks before running out of gas, according to a report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

That NTSB report, issued earlier this month, listed the defining event as “fuel starvation.” The report found the student pilot did not alternate between two fuel tanks on the plane.

The flight instructor was forced to land on the parkway near Route 109, striking a “wrong way” sign on the parkway that nearly “snapped the right wing off.”

The NTSB found the probable cause of the emergency was “the student pilot’s lack of fuel management during the flight and the flight instructor’s inadequate monitoring of his student’s fuel management, resulting in fuel starvation and a forced landing to a highway.”

According to interviews with the flight instructor, identified as Anthony Q. Lanni, 24, of the Bronx, and the student pilot, Benson V. Mathew, 42, of Hicksville, the plane departed Republic Airport for an instructional flight that was intended to begin at 9 a.m. and end at noon on Feb. 20.

The plane, which has a fuel capacity of 50 gallons, 25 in each wing, departed Republic Airport earlier that morning without having been refueled. Lanni told FAA investigators there were 13 gallons in the right tank and 17 gallons in the left tank, according to the report.

After the crash, first responders saw fuel leaking from the right wing for about 30 minutes. Investigators found the engine was set to the left tank position, which was later found to have about a half-gallon of fuel. The right fuel tank read that it had about 11.3 gallons remaining, according to the report.

The report identified Mathew as the “principal of Aptum Aviation, Inc., the owner, and operator of this aircraft.” He had 22 hours of flight time, including 16 hours operating that airplane model.

The plane departed at 9:56 a.m. and went on to practice various flight maneuvers, including climbs, descents, altitude holds, turns and emergency procedures, the report noted.

Lanni and Mathew were practicing takeoffs and landings at the airport when, about two hours into the flight, during the second approach to landing, Mathew pushed the throttle and the engine didn’t respond. Lanni then took the controls and landed on the parkway at about 11:41 a.m. Neither Lanni nor Mathew was injured.

NTSB investigators said Lanni reported reminding Mathew several times to switch fuel tanks, but Mathew said he did not remember ever switching tanks during the flight. Lanni said the fuel selector valve was operated four times to switch fuel tanks while in the air, the report said.

In a written statement made to a state police trooper who initially responded to the scene, Lanni noted Mathew was flying the Cherokee when the initial emergency was declared. Lanni took control of the aircraft, making an immediate determination based on his “training an [sic] experience as a pilot” that the plane could not make the runway and faced “multiple buildings we would've struck.” So he informed the control tower an attempted parkway landing was “the safest option.”

As Lanni stated: “I turned the aircraft to the right and lined up with eastbound traffic in the area of exit 33. I brought the plane down and landed in the middle of the parkway without striking any motor vehicle traffic. I hit the brakes hard at this time and I observed the vehicles in front of me begin to hit the brakes when they realized what happened. I was forces [sic] to maneuver the aircraft to the right onto the grass shoulder in order to avoid colliding with any motor vehicles.”

CLARIFICATION: A prior version of this story was based on a redacted report by the NTSB and did not include the agency's conclusion that the pilots operating the plane did not properly manage their fuel.