MIA93LA174 · Cessna 150F
Dove Aviation Cessna 150F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93LA174
- 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 150F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N7873F
- Operator
- Dove Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT DEPARTED WITH AN ESTIMATED SUFFICIENT QUANTITY OF FUEL BASED ON THE FUEL GAUGES. WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH TO LAND, THE ENGINE QUIT DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION. THE PILOT LANDED THE AIRPLANE IN A SMALL BODY OF WATER AFTER HE WAS UNABLE TO LAND AT THE AIRPORT. THE AIRPLANE WAS RECOVERED AND EXAMINATION BY THE FAA REVEALED THAT THE LEFT AND RIGHT FUEL TANKS CONTAINED RESPECTIVELY 1.5 AND 2 GALLONS OF FUEL. ACCORDING TO THE TYPE CERTIFICATE DATA SHEET, THE UNUSABLE FUEL QUANTITY IS 3.5 GALLONS. THE AIRPLANE WAS OPERATED ACCORDING TO THE TACHOMETER 3.69 HOURS SINCE THE FUEL TANKS WERE FILLED.
Probable cause
TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER CAUSED BY FUEL EXHAUSTION AND INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PLANNING/PREPARATION BY THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE INACCURATE FUEL QUANTITY GAUGES AND THE LACK OF SUITABLE TERRAIN FOR THE FORCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93LA174
- Event ID
- 20001211X13201
- Case number
- MIA93LA174
- 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 1993-08-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6007400b6de6cd8f7b2f0d0d7ca5660595b7f2aa4fe1a35b6e2bbc8ef2102b36; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:45:15.317Z.