IAD98LA030 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Lancaster Airport (LNS) to Rutland - Southern Vermont Regional Airport (RUT)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD98LA030
- 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 172
- 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
- N5593E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lancaster Airport (LNS), Lancaster, PATo Rutland - Southern Vermont Regional Airport (RUT)
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Rutland, VT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot planned a 250 nautical mile trip at a cruise speed of 100 knots in a no wind condition. He planned for a 5 hour fuel endurance with a 45 minute reserve. The pilot filed a VFR flight plan, but did not adjust the estimated time en route for a 44 knot headwind. He checked the fuel quantity 'once or twice' during the flight and did not check the fuel quantity, when he called to extend his flight plan due to headwinds. In cruise flight at 3,000 feet, 3 to 5 miles from the destination airport, the engine sputtered. The pilot completed the engine restart procedure, but the engine only 'windmilled,' and then stopped completely. The pilot stated: 'I ran out of fuel and had to set down in a field.' The pilot performed a forced landing to a field. During approach, the airplane 'clipped' light brush and the tops of some small trees. The nose gear collapsed during the landing roll. Less than 1 gallon of fuel was recovered from the airplane. The pilot reported 112 hours of flight experience of which 24 were in make and model.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight planning/decision, which resulted in fuel exhaustion, loss of engine power, and a forced landing. Related factors were: unfavorable (headwind) conditions, and brush/small trees in the forced landing area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD98LA030
- Event ID
- 20001211X09560
- Case number
- IAD98LA030
- 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: 3a5bedbc49a7e0970638054640593e0c90ec9b44d09ce6ce4476492b574ff796; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:00:51.411Z.