SEA93FA102 · Cessna 172C
Cessna 172C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Coeur D'Alene Airport - Pappy Boyington Field (COE) to Renton Municipal Airport (RNT)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93FA102
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Unknown
Cessna 172C
- 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
- N1406Y
- Operator
- Roulier, Brent L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coeur D'Alene Airport - Pappy Boyington Field (COE), Coeur d'Alene, IDTo Renton Municipal Airport (RNT), Renton, WA
- 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
- 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 › Refueling, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT, WHICH WAS TOPPED OFF WITH A MAXIMUM OF 41 GALLONS OF USABLE FUEL HAD BEEN FLOWN 0.8 HOURS BEFORE THE PILOT DEPARTED RENTON, WASHINGTON. THE ESTIMATED FLIGHT TIME TO HIS FIRST DESTINATION (COEUR D' ALENE, IDAHO) WAS APPROXIMATELY 2.2 HOURS (NO WIND). AFTER HIS ARRIVAL, THE PILOT TOPPED OFF THE RIGHT TANK WITH 13.8 GALLONS BUT ADDED NO FUEL TO THE LEFT TANK. THE AIRCRAFT THEN TOOK OFF AND LESS THAN 10 MINUTES LATER TAXIED BACK TO THE FBO. NO FUEL WAS ADDED AND THE AIRCRAFT DEPARTED COEUR D' ALENE AT APPROXIMATELY 1755. RADAR DATA SHOWED THE AIRCRAFT CLIMBING TO 13,900 FEET ALTITUDE AT ONE POINT BEFORE THE PILOT REPORTED HE WAS OUT OF GAS AT 2122 (3.45 HOURS ELAPSED TIME FROM LAST TAKEOFF). THE TOTAL ESTIMATED FLIGHT TIME WAS 6.55 HOURS. THE OWNER REPORTED THAT THE AVERAGE FUEL CONSUMPTION WAS 8 GALLONS PER HOUR.
Probable cause
FUEL EXHAUSTION AND THE PILOT IN COMMAND'S INADEQUATE REFUELING OF THE AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93FA102
- Event ID
- 20001211X12243
- Case number
- SEA93FA102
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-04-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a60c27c14c227b7e9c806e435b2959e1cd70f8253006f940569852c1c409772e; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:36:10.617Z.