In an internal combustion engine, fuel starvation is the failure of the fuel system to supply sufficient fuel to allow the engine to run properly, for example due to blockage, vapor lock, contamination by water, malfunction of the fuel pump or incorrect operation, leading to loss of power or engine stoppage. There is still fuel in the tank(s), but it is unable to get to the engine(s) in sufficient quantity. By contrast, fuel exhaustion is an occurrence in which the vehicle in question becomes completely devoid of usable fuel, with results similar to those of fuel starvation.
British Airways Flight 38 crash-landed at London Heathrow in 2008 after its fuel lines became clogged with ice crystals.
The forward fuselage section of Lady Be Good, a B-24 Liberator which crashed in the Libyan Desert after running out of fuel
Lady Be Good is a B-24D Liberator bomber that disappeared without a trace on its first combat mission during World War II. The plane, which was from 376th Bomb Group of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), was believed to have been lost—with its nine-man crew—in the Mediterranean Sea while returning to its base in Libya following a bombing raid on Naples on April 4, 1943. However, the wreck was accidentally discovered 710 km (440 mi) inland in the Libyan Desert by an oil exploration team from British Petroleum on November 9, 1958. A ground party in March 1959 later identified the aircraft as a B-24D.
Parts were strewn by the Consolidated B-24D Liberator Lady Be Good as it skidded to a halt amid the otherwise empty Libyan desert. Engines 1, 2 and 3 visible in the photograph had their propellers feathered.
The crew of Lady Be Good. Left to right: Hatton, Toner, Hays, Woravka, Ripslinger, LaMotte, Shelley, Moore, Adams.
The wreckage of the Lady Be Good in 1958
Intact cockpit and nose with machine guns still in place