LAX95LA206 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Catalina Airport (AVX) to Meadows Field (BFL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA206
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 177B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N16081
- Operator
- Steve Cline
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Catalina Airport (AVX), Avalon, CATo Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, CA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Lack of familiarity with aircraft
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED A TOTAL POWER LOSS WHILE AT 8,500 FT MSL. HE INITIATED A GLIDE TOWARD AN AIRPORT, BUT LANDED WITH NO FLAPS IN A ROUGH FIELD ABOUT 1 MILE SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. BEFORE DEPARTURE HE MADE A VISUAL INSPECTION OF THE FUEL QUANTITY AND OBSERVED THE FUEL LEVEL TO BE LEVEL WITH SOME DOTTED MARKINGS. HE THOUGHT THE DOTS REPRESENTED FULL FUEL. THE OPERATOR'S MANUAL STATES THE FUEL CAPACITY TO THE 'LINE OF HOLES' INSIDE THE FILLER NECK IS 22 GALLONS. THE AIRCRAFT WAS EQUIPPED WITH 50-GALLON STANDARD RANGE TANKS, WITH 49 GALLONS OF USABLE FUEL. THE OPERATOR SAID THAT NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN EITHER TANK WHEN THE AIRCRAFT WAS RECOVERED FROM THE ACCIDENT SITE. HE REPORTED THAT THE AIRCRAFT HAD BEEN FLOWN 1.6 HOURS BEFORE BEING DISPATCHED TO THE PILOT. HE ESTIMATED THAT THE PILOT DEPARTED BAKERSFIELD WITH 33 GALLONS OF FUEL ONBOARD. THE HOBBS METER SHOWED THE PILOT HAD FLOWN 2.9 HOURS. THE OPERATOR STATED THAT THE ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT BURNED BETWEEN 10 AND 12 GPH. NO FUEL WAS AVAILABLE AT AVALON AIRPORT ON CATALINA ISLAND.
Probable cause
Fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's lack of familiarity with the airplane's fuel sysytem and his failure to maintain an adequate supply of fuel to complete the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA206
- Event ID
- 20001207X03740
- Case number
- LAX95LA206
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-06-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c08d40e0baa644c531bc3e238de5c574da01b069c8a709fb6b449c553b4c49d5; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:16:26.804Z.