NYC96LA147 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Igor I Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR) to Sky Manor Airport (N40)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA147
- 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 177RG
- 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
- N8059G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Igor I Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR), Bridgeport, CTTo Sky Manor Airport (N40), PITTSTOWN, NJ
- 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; Wire, transmission
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Physical impairment
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Rockaway, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was en route about 700 feet above the ground when the engine lost power. The pilot turned toward a shopping mall parking lot, and during the descent the airplane struck a power line. The airplane impacted the ground in a nose-low attitude and the nose landing gear collapsed. Examination of the airplane revealed that the fuel tanks were empty with corresponding indication of the fuel gages. There was no evidence of fuel siphoning or leakage on the airplane. The pilot reported that he did not check the fuel quantity before the flight, but instead did an estimation of the amount. The pilot's medical certificate had expired and his flight review was past due. A police toxicologist indicated that the pilot had a blood alcohol level of 0.060%.
Probable cause
The pilot's impairment of judgment and performance due to alcohol which led to his inadequate preflight of the aircraft and his inadequate inflight decision which resulted in fuel exhaustion and loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA147
- Event ID
- 20001208X06343
- Case number
- NYC96LA147
- 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: 9b3829ed101b069b25edf14940818fc626445e64dc417224b7771851eff9ce23; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:39:52.413Z.