NYC91LA135 · Cessna 152 II
Cessna 152 II · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN) to Cross Keys Airport (17N)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA135
- 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 152 II
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N94512
- Operator
- Albert C. Lewis · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN), Easton, MDTo Cross Keys Airport (17N), CROSS KEYS, NJ
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel system › Exhaustion
- Terrain condition › Rough/uneven
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Newtonville, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT WAS COMPLETING A SOLO CROSS COUNTRY, WHEN SHE BECAME LOST AND DISORIENTED. SHE ATTEMPTED TO DETERMINE HER LOCATION FOR APPROXIMATELY 45 MINUTES WITHOUT SUCCESS. SHE CONTACTED A FLIGHT SERVICE STATION BY RADIO WITH ABOUT 15 MINUTES OF FUEL REMAINING. THIS WAS INSUFFICIENT TIME TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE AND FUEL EXHAUSTION OCCURRED. THE PILOT MADE AN EMERGENCY FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD.
Probable cause
PILOT FACTOR IN THAT THE STUDENT PILOT DELAYED ASKING FOR ASSISTANCE, AFTER BECOMING LOST UNTIL INSUFFICIENT FUEL WAS AVAILABLE TO MAKE AN AIRPORT. THIS RESULTED IN ENGINE FAILURE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION AND A SUBSEQUENT EMERGENCY LANDING IN ROUGH TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA135
- Event ID
- 20001212X17105
- Case number
- NYC91LA135
- 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: ddff6989ac11c99c237a8d36a83ae0458711ec62f11637ba59e713aaaba22988; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:12:00.633Z.