ATL90LA048 · Cessna 172B
Cessna 172B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Abernathy Field (GZS) to Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90LA048
- 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 172B
- 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
- N7401X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Abernathy Field (GZS), Pulaski, TNTo Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL), Muscle Shoals, AL
- 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
- 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 AIRPLANE HAD BEEN FLOWN FROM JOLIET, IL TO PULASKI, TN. AFTER LANDING THE PIC WAS TOLD FUEL WAS NOT AVAILABLE. SHE DEPARTED TO FLY TO MUSCLE SHOALS, AL, 37 MI SW OF PULASKI ABOUT 8 MI FROM MUSCLE SHOALS THE ENGINE QUIT. UPON DEPARTURE FROM JOLIET THE FUEL WAS FULL & ENDURANCE WAS EXPECTED TO BE 4+30 HOURS. THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WA REPORTED AS 1435. AN FAA INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE AIRPLANE & FOUND NO FUEL IN THE GASCOLATOR OF THE INVERTED AIRPLANE. HE REPORTED THAT THE PIC STATED AT THE ACCIDENT SITE THAT THE FUEL HAD BEEN EXHAUSTED.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE PRE-FLIGHT PLANNING BY THE PILOT IN COMMAND WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL EXHAUSTION DURING CRUISE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90LA048
- Event ID
- 20001212X22365
- Case number
- ATL90LA048
- 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: 3150980cca8dbfc8c7818f877676a40a29b157f9961c5cb4e90865b4f2d48f03; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:52:32.192Z.