Narrative:

I took off to visit my friend in lake placid. I have flown this trip many times. My airplane is a piper PA-28-235 with a lycoming O-540 engine and the fuel consumption at 65% power is 11 gallons per hour. I had 50 gallons of fuel on board for a trip of 1:35 hours. It was a very nice day and the ceiling and visibility was unlimited locally. I called my friend in lake placid pertaining to the weather there. His remark was it is a nice day but a low cloud overcast. This is not new to me; because this is very often the case and later in the day the cloud layer lifts or there are holes in the clouds to descend safely. My cruise altitude was 5;500 ft. After albany I saw the cloud cover and I climbed to 9;500 ft to be on top of the cloud cover. After reaching lake placid (GPS) I could not see any holes in the clouds. I decided to circle lake placid in a radius of 25 miles to find a hole in the clouds. I did not find any holes. I decided to enlarge the radius to 35 miles around lake placid; again no holes. From previous experience I know that there is no cloud cover over lake champlain. I flew east over lake champlain and as I expected I could descend safely to 4;000 ft AGL under the cloud cover in visual contact with the ground and tried to reach lake placid; however; the cloud cover was about 5;000 ft and covered the mountain peaks. At this point I decided to return to the south and I checked my flight time and had been in the air 2:50 hours. I concluded I could reach ZZZ with no problem but did not have enough fuel to reach glenn-falls. As I was over ZZZ; I found the airport was properly marked closed due to construction; some person from the construction crew had an aircraft hand held transceiver and contacted me on unicom. I told the person I had to land soon due to low fuel and asked if he could move the equipment from the runway. The runway itself was completed only the shoulders of the runway had to be graded and seeded. At this point; somebody from the FAA contacted me and advised me I should declare an emergency on 121.50 and I complied with his request. In the meantime the construction crew removed the vehicles from the runway and I could land safely. After adding 20 gallons of fuel I took off and returned to my home field without further incident.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: PA28 private pilot reports landing at a closed airport after a solid undercast prevents landing at his destination; and time spent looking for a hole results in a low fuel situation.

Narrative: I took off to visit my friend in Lake Placid. I have flown this trip many times. My airplane is a Piper PA-28-235 with a Lycoming O-540 engine and the fuel consumption at 65% power is 11 gallons per hour. I had 50 gallons of fuel on board for a trip of 1:35 hours. It was a very nice day and the ceiling and visibility was unlimited locally. I called my friend in Lake Placid pertaining to the weather there. His remark was it is a nice day but a low cloud overcast. This is not new to me; because this is very often the case and later in the day the cloud layer lifts or there are holes in the clouds to descend safely. My cruise altitude was 5;500 FT. After Albany I saw the cloud cover and I climbed to 9;500 FT to be on top of the cloud cover. After reaching Lake Placid (GPS) I could not see any holes in the clouds. I decided to circle Lake Placid in a radius of 25 miles to find a hole in the clouds. I did not find any holes. I decided to enlarge the radius to 35 miles around Lake Placid; again no holes. From previous experience I know that there is no cloud cover over Lake Champlain. I flew east over Lake Champlain and as I expected I could descend safely to 4;000 FT AGL under the cloud cover in visual contact with the ground and tried to reach Lake Placid; however; the cloud cover was about 5;000 FT and covered the mountain peaks. At this point I decided to return to the south and I checked my flight time and had been in the air 2:50 hours. I concluded I could reach ZZZ with no problem but did not have enough fuel to reach Glenn-Falls. As I was over ZZZ; I found the airport was properly marked closed due to construction; some person from the construction crew had an aircraft hand held transceiver and contacted me on Unicom. I told the person I had to land soon due to low fuel and asked if he could move the equipment from the runway. The runway itself was completed only the shoulders of the runway had to be graded and seeded. At this point; somebody from the FAA contacted me and advised me I should declare an emergency on 121.50 and I complied with his request. In the meantime the construction crew removed the vehicles from the runway and I could land safely. After adding 20 gallons of fuel I took off and returned to my home field without further incident.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.