More than two years after a Piper Cherokee training flight crashed in a Bridgewater Township farm field, federal investigators have determined that fuel starvation preceded the loss of engine power. The June 10, 2024, crash killed 46-year-old Kevin Kreger, a Dearborn chiropractor and flight instructor, and critically injured his 22-year-old student pilot.
The National Transportation Safety Board's probable-cause finding in docket CEN24FA215 identified the fuel selector's position as a contributing factor: it had been inadvertently left between the Left Tank and Off settings. That position blocked fuel flow. After the engine lost power, the crew attempted a forced landing, and the airplane went down in a field.
The NTSB identified the probable cause as the flight instructor's failure to maintain control while maneuvering for the forced landing after the total loss of engine power. It identified the selector's position as a contributing factor in the subsequent engine-power loss, but the finding does not by itself establish a national pattern or rate for fuel-starvation accidents.
A recurring general-aviation hazard
Fuel management is a documented hazard beyond this Michigan crash, although individual accidents are examples rather than evidence that such events are becoming more frequent. In Lakin, West Virginia, on April 23, 2025, the NTSB attributed a Beech 95-C55's fuel starvation and total loss of engine power to inadequate preflight inspection and inflight fuel management; one person was seriously injured. The NTSB's report describes that separate accident.
A second comparison involves an instructional flight in Sanford, Florida, on Feb. 27, 2024. In that accident, a Cirrus SR20 lost engine power after fuel starvation, and the NTSB cited fuel mismanagement; the pilot receiving instruction was seriously injured, the flight instructor was not injured, and a pilot-rated passenger suffered minor injuries. The NTSB report documents the similarities—and the differences—in that case.
The NTSB report on the Lakin accident discusses fuel-management investigations rather than all aviation accidents, and it does not determine what happened in the Bridgewater Township cockpit beyond the findings in the Michigan case.
What pilot guidance emphasizes
The Federal Aviation Administration's Airplane Flying Handbook provides general guidance on normal approaches and landings.
That guidance helps explain why a small control-position error can become consequential after an engine stops producing power. It does not, however, replace the NTSB's event-specific finding: in the Bridgewater Township crash, investigators concluded that the selector's position interrupted fuel flow, followed by an attempted forced landing in which the instructor did not maintain control.
The crash therefore illustrates two linked risks in single-engine training operations: preventing fuel starvation and maintaining aircraft control when prevention fails. The available findings establish the sequence in this case, while the separate accidents and FAA guidance show why fuel selection and emergency checks remain recurring safety concerns in general aviation.
