LAX94LA036 · Cessna 175
Cessna 175 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From 307 · Hollister, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA036
- 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 175
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N7646M
- Operator
- John C. Culver · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 307 · Hollister, CATo 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the aircraft was descending toward Palm Springs after an uneventful 3 hour 13 minute flight. He stated that both wing fuel tanks were filled to capacity before departure. About eight miles from the airport as the aircraft descended through about 8,000 feet, the engine stopped. The pilot set up a best-glide configuration; however, landed short of the airport in soft sand. When the nose gear touched down, the nose gear collapsed and the aircraft nosed over. Examination of the site revealed no fuel spill on the ground under the aircraft, and no fuel stains were noted around the tank caps or vents. Total fuel system continuity was established from the tanks to the engine. One-quarter of a gallon of fuel was drained from the left tank while less than five gallons were drained from the right tank. According to the aircraft owners manual, each wing fuel tank has a 26 gallon capacity, 21 of which is usable.
Probable cause
fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's failure to adequately monitor the fuel consumption during the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA036
- Event ID
- 20001211X13747
- Case number
- LAX94LA036
- 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 1993-11-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5c5699e0cc1daa0b85f279e7b80314630b6319ae912afc2ad4b4d3832bbf1f4b; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:46:03.440Z.