FTW97LA010 · Cessna 152
Aero Academy Cessna 152 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS) to Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA010
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N5525L
- Operator
- Aero Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS), Galveston, TXTo Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS), TX
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane ran out of fuel approximately 11 miles SSE of Galveston, Texas. The pilot transmitted a 'MAYDAY' radio call to Galveston Airport tower, informing them that he ran out of fuel and was going to ditch near an oil rig. After ditching, both occupants swam to the rig safely. The aircraft sank and has not been recovered. The pilot stated that he departed the airport with full fuel tanks (24.5 gallons usable) at 1200, and flew approximately 100 miles outbound into the Gulf of Mexico on a magnetic course of 147 degrees. At about 1335, after completion of the aerial survey, he proceeded inbound on a 355 degree course for the return to Galveston. In a weather brief prior to his initial departure, the forecast winds were 030 degrees at 25 knots. According to the pilot, the actual winds 'turned out to be a great deal stronger and from a more northerly heading.' Usable fuel was exhausted at approximately 1505, about 10 miles from the shore line. The airplane was airborne for about 3 hours 5 minutes.
Probable cause
fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's inadequate in-flight fuel consumption calculations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA010
- Event ID
- 20001208X06876
- Case number
- FTW97LA010
- 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: bbeb740805a8572e19ccc6a6966add8d972f46f373e32b9aeb6c126bb78c52b4; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:34:46.856Z.