Pilot Told Air Traffic Controllers His Engine Shut Off Before Crash That Killed Family of 5: 'I'm Going to Be Landing'

A plane crash in Tennessee that killed a Canadian family of five in March 2024 was the result of pilot error, authorities said in their final report.

Victor Dotsenko was flying his family — wife Rimma, 39, and their three children David, 12, Adam, 10, and Emma, 7 —  when their single-engine Piper PA32RT crashed onto the frontage road of busy Interstate 40 near downtown Nashville, about two miles from John C. Tune Airport just before 7:45 p.m. on March 4, 2024.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board's final report, which was released on Wednesday, Mar. 5, and obtained by PEOPLE, the crash was due to “the pilot’s failure to ensure the proper placement of the fuel selector during the approach and landing, which resulted in fuel starvation and a subsequent total loss of engine power.”

The report said the 43-year-old father of three was on approach to the airport when he informed the control tower that he would need to overfly the runway.

The pilot did not give a reason for why he couldn’t land but told a controller that he was having engine problems and that he would attempt to land.

"My engine turned off, I'm at 1,600," Dotsenko said, according to the report. "I'm going to be landing, I don't know where."

The controller then declared an emergency and cleared the pilot to land on runway 2, which Dotsenko said he had in sight but was too far away to reach.

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“Shortly after, the airplane impacted terrain adjacent to an interstate, two nautical miles south of the runway and a significant post-impact fire ensued,” according to the NTSB. 

The small plane had departed from Brampton-Caledon Airport in Ontario earlier that day and had made stops at Erie International Airport in Pennsylvania and Mount Sterling-Montgomery County Airport in Kentucky before heading to Nashville on the third leg of the trip.

The Dotsenkos were beloved in their Ontario hometown, and shortly after the incident, the community shared their collective shock.

“This is a heartbreaking and devastating loss for our tight-knit community,” King Township Mayor Steve Pellegrini in a statement shared on X days after the crash. 

The children’s school, UMCA Rich Tree Academy — located in Vaughan, Ontario — also shared their heartbreak about the tragedy.

"These beautiful children lit up our hallways every day,” the school wrote on Instagram at the time. “They all had such a positive energy and attitude towards their friends and teachers."

NTSB investigators determined that Dotsenko had accumulated about 200 total hours of flight time as of Feb. 22, 2024, and of those, 43.4 hours were flown in the same plane involved in the accident. The pilot’s documented total night flying experience was 18.5 hours.