LAX95LA295 · Cessna 172F
Cessna 172F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Porterville Municipal Airport (PTV) to Mesa Del Rey Airport (KIC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA295
- 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 172F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N5563R
- Operator
- Silva, Burton L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Porterville Municipal Airport (PTV), Porterville, CATo Mesa Del Rey Airport (KIC), King City, 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)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE WAS DIVERTING DUE TO WEATHER TO AN ALTERNATE AIRPORT WHEN HE RAN OUT OF FUEL. THE PILOT WAS RETURNING FROM A PERSONAL CROSS-COUNTRY NIGHT FLIGHT. HE STATED THAT HE DID NOT REFUEL BECAUSE HE CALCULATED THAT HE HAD ENOUGH FUEL FOR THE RETURN FLIGHT. UPON REACHING HIS FINAL DESTINATION HE FOUND THE AIRPORT WAS FOGGED IN. HE SPENT ABOUT 1/2 HOUR IN THE GENERAL AREA ANALYZING THE SITUATION AND CHECKING ANOTHER PRIVATE AIRSTRIP BEFORE DIVERTING TO ANOTHER AIRPORT KNOWN TO BE VFR. HOWEVER, BEFORE REACHING THE ALTERNATE AIRPORT, THE ENGINE LOST POWER AND DURING THE FORCED LANDING IN A SOFT, PLOWED FIELD, THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER.
Probable cause
fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's failure to refuel prior to takeoff and his delayed decision to proceed to his alternate airport. The night light conditions and the lack of a suitable emergency landing area were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA295
- Event ID
- 20001207X04293
- Case number
- LAX95LA295
- 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: 490e902243ebfec5bdc6a9820938c9f52497ca10d9bff442da63dc91a914ae4a; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:25:32.848Z.