CHI95LA263 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to Lake Lawn Airport (C59)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA263
- 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 177
- 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
- N9055J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo Lake Lawn Airport (C59)
- 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 · descent
- 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; Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported seeing the airplane flying low overhead; the engine was cutting out and then quit altogether. The airplane impacted the ground in a corn field 1 hour and 26 minutes after takeoff. There was no evidence of fuel at the accident site and no signs of fuel leakage or fuel venting. The airplane impacted the ground in a 30 degree nose down pitch attitude and in a 30 degree right roll. The right fuel tank gauge indicated about 1/8 tank of fuel. The right fuel tank fuel transmitter float was caught up on the rib inside the fuel tank. An examination of the fuel level float revealed that the wire which extended past the fuel level float had not been trimmed as required and was able to contact the wing station rib #68. The fuel level transmitter was an authorized replacement part and had not been installed on the aircraft as new equipment. The engine was removed from the airplane for a test cell run, and operated normally and within performance specifications. A passenger had observed the pilot checking both fuel tanks, and the pilot indicated that there was 3-1/2 hours of fuel on board the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to assure an adequate amount of fuel was available for the flight. A factor was the improperly installed fuel level transmitter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA263
- Event ID
- 20001207X04188
- Case number
- CHI95LA263
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d1f97656c98086d45101034cf481a50b1437b428fa399a72aafc1ff443a086ad; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:09:55.015Z.