MIA90FA107 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Page Field (FMY)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA90FA107
- 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
- 3 · 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 177B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N30962
- Operator
- Anderson, Kaye F. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Page Field (FMY), Fort Myers, FL
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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; Stall
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES RPRTD THAT AFTER TAKEOFF, THE ACFT ENTERED A STEEP CLIMB, THEN THE ENG LOST POWER AS THE PLANE WAS PROCEEDING OVER WATER AT ABT 200 TO 300 FT. AN IMMEDIATE LEFT TURN WAS MADE, FOLLOWED BY A NOSE DOWN DESCENT. ABOUT 100 FT ABOVE THE WATER, ENG POWER WAS RESTORED, BUT THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH THE WATER BEFORE THE DESCENT WAS ARRESTED. PSNL (WHO TRIEDTO RESCUE THE OCCUPANTS, IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ACDNT) DID NOT NOTICE ANY OIL SLICK OR FUEL ON THE WATER. ONLY SALT WATERWAS FOUND IN THE FUEL TANKS. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT HAD BEEN SERVICED WITH A FUEL LOAD OF ABOUT 40 GAL ON 4/10/90. THE ACFT WAS THEN FLOWN ABOUT 3.8 HRS BEFORE THE ACDNT. THERE WAS NO RECORD OF ANY FURTHER REFUELING. FUEL CONSUMPTION FOR THE ENG WAS ESTIMATED TO BE ABOUT 10 TO 11 GAL/HR AT 65% TO 75% POWER.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL EXHAUSTION, DUE TO AN INADEQUATE SUPPLY OF FUEL, AND FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED, WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA90FA107
- Event ID
- 20001212X22968
- Case number
- MIA90FA107
- 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: d4fbae127e17baecb5a948a02102b2d19efedb8bd2de71e38d6801cd48d9e8fa; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:46:34.400Z.