CHI01LA004 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Schaumburg Regional Airport (06C) to Black River Falls Area Airport (BCK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA004
- 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 172M
- 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
- N13214
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Schaumburg Regional Airport (06C), Schaumburg, ILTo Black River Falls Area Airport (BCK), Black River Falls, WI
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight to destination alternate, not performed
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, discontinued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted a tree and terrain following a total nonmechanical loss of engine power. The pilot reported that with the fuel tanks half full there would be 20 gallons of fuel. The pilot calculated that there would be 4 gallons of reserve fuel remaining following a 2-hour flight at a fuel burn of 8 gallons per hour. The airplane was equipped with two main fuel tanks which had a total fuel capacity of 42 gallons, of which 38 gallons were unusable. Federal Aviation Administration publication, FAA-P-8740-03 states that a "safe flight time" is based upon multiplying the usable fuel on board by 75% and dividing that result by the previously confirmed consumption rate. Also, fuel gauges must be calibrated to accurately indicate an empty tank and do not have to be accurate at any other fuel level. The publication also states that the performance and fuel information in the pilot operating handbook is based upon the testing of new aircraft with experienced test pilots. During approach to the airport, the pilot changed his planned landing runway so as to land with a more favorable wind; the engine quit on the base leg of the newly selected runway. The wind at the time of the accident was 360 degrees at 7 knots. Advisory Circular 61-21A, states, "When a forced landing is imminent, wind direction and speed should always be considered, but the main object is to complete a safe landing in the largest and best field available. No evidence of fuel was found aboard the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's inaccurate fuel consumption calculations, improper fuel management, inadequate in-flight planning/decision, flight to destination alternate not performed, and the discontinued planned approach to the initially selected runway. Contributing factors were the fuel system not understood by the pilot. The tree was additional factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA004
- Event ID
- 20001212X22118
- Case number
- CHI01LA004
- 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 2000-10-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 374d5c1ae4bbf3c0c65452152518d02fd12d16e9366f2f3c89b0d981dc064233; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:04:10.829Z.