What happened
The aircraft departed Houston, Texas, on a VFR flight destined for San Diego, California. The crew had originally intended to refuel at Gila Bend, Arizona, but learned that fueling services there were closed. To manage the situation, the pilot landed at a private airstable and arranged for an individual to drive to Casa Grande airport to procure fuel.
Due to concerns regarding sufficient runway length at the private strip, the pilot elected to take on only 65 gallons of fuel for the remaining leg of the flight to San Diego. During the en route portion of the flight, the right seat pilot obtained weather information from Flight Service Station (FSS) indicating a 1,000-foot overcast ceiling at the destination. Consequently, the crew requested and received an instrument clearance.
During the approach, the TRACON controller instructed the pilot to maintain speed to avoid delay vectors caused by jet traffic. The pilot notified Air Traffic Control (ATC) that the aircraft was fuel critical, estimating they had between 45 minutes and one hour of fuel remaining. The crew was cleared for the localizer runway 27 approach.
Approximately 18 minutes later, the pilot initiated a missed approach because the aircraft was too high to land. Shortly after this maneuver, the pilot informed San Diego radar that the aircraft was extremely fuel critical, with only approximately 5 minutes of fuel left. San Diego radar provided vectors to the nearest airport and instructed the pilot not to descend further. The right seat pilot stated the aircraft was behaving like a glider, and later informed San Diego police that they had experienced fuel exhaustion.
There were 0 fatalities and the occupants were not injured.