What happened
The pilot had recently purchased the amphibious aircraft and had received 6.7 hours of dual instruction with endorsement for solo flight. During a cross-country flight from Elizabethtown, Tennessee, he landed at Richmond, Kentucky, and purchased 23.8 gallons of fuel. On the next leg to Lafayette, Indiana, he made some heading and altitude changes to avoid weather. Also on that leg, he recalculated his fuel consumption and estimated he had sufficient fuel to continue to Warsaw, Indiana.
At Lafayette, he made a minor repair, then took off without refueling. While en route to Warsaw, the engine lost power. The pilot restarted it, but it ran only 2 to 3 seconds, then would not restart. He began an emergency, wheels-up landing in a wheat field, but saw a power line and did not have enough speed to fly over it. While flying under the wires, the floats hit a bank and the plane crashed. No fuel was found in the fuel tanks.
The investigation
Gasket material was found in a fuel screen, but later, the engine was run with the material in the screen and it ran normally. Approx 145 gallons of fuel had been used in 8.2 hours of flight, which included many landings.
Findings
The pilot's decision to take off without refueling despite recalculating fuel consumption contributed to the accident. The fuel exhaustion led to the loss of engine power and subsequent crash.