MIA93LA118 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From St Marys Airport (4J6) to Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93LA118
- 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 172P
- 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
- N63012
- Operator
- American Flyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Marys Airport (4J6), ST. MARY'S, GATo Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX), Titusville, FL
- 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; Stall
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE AND TWO OTHER AIRPLANES DEPARTED ON THE FIRST LEG OF A LONG CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT WHICH WAS UNEVENTFUL. FUEL WAS NOT PURCHASED AT THE FIRST STOP BY ANY OF THE THREE AIRPLANES. THE FLIGHT OF THREE DEPARTED, AND THE OTHER TWO AIRPLANES LANDED AT THE PLANNED AIRPORT FOR A FUEL STOP. THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED FUEL EXHAUSTION NORTH OF THE DESTINATION AIRPORT & THE PILOT INTENTIONALLY STALLED THE AIRPLANE INTO A CLEARING. THE AIRPLANE LANDED LEFT WING LOW WHICH CAUSED THE LEFT MAIN AND NOSE LANDING GEARS TO COLLAPSE. THE RIGHT FUEL TANK DID NOT CONTAIN ANY FUEL. THE LEFT FUEL TANK CONTAINED ABOUT 2 QUARTS OF FUEL. THE GASCOLATOR CONTAINED ABOUT 1 OUNCE OF FUEL. THE CARBURETOR BOWL DID NOT CONTAIN ANY FUEL. THE PLT DID PERFORM FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATIONS FOR THE FLIGHT BUT DID NOT LEAN THE FUEL/AIR RATIO DURING CRUISE FLIGHT. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT'S OPERATING HANDBOOK, THE FUEL FLOW DURING CRUISE FLIGHT IS DETERMINED WITH THE RECOMMENDED LEAN MIXTURE SETTING. AN EGT INDICATOR WAS INSTALLED & ACCORDING TO THE PILOT'S OPERATING HANDBOOK, IS USED AS AN AID FOR MIXTURE LEANING DURING CRUISE FLIGHT AT 75 PERCENT POWER OR LESS.
Probable cause
TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO LEAN THE FUEL/AIR MIXTURE DURING CRUISE FLIGHT WHICH INCREASED THE FUEL CONSUMPTION FOR THE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93LA118
- Event ID
- 20001211X12454
- Case number
- MIA93LA118
- 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: 8b56d60540264b086b593857481d850f6879c5f3714b85c242bf0b814c5424d4; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:07:40.786Z.