LAX91LA027 · Cessna 177A
Cessna 177A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM) to Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA027
- 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 177A
- 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
- N30438
- Operator
- Giles, Wilma · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM), San Diego, CATo Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL), Fullerton, CA
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT NEGOTIATED THREE TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS WITHOUT REFUELING. HE INDICATED THAT THE FLIGHT TIME BEFORE DEPARTING ON THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT LEG WAS 3.4 HOURS. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT HE HAD FLOWN ABOUT 4.1 HOURS. ABOUT 35 MINUTES AFTER DEPARTING ON THE LAST LEG OF THE FLIGHT THE AIRPLANE SUSTAINED A TOTAL ENGINE POWER LOSS. DURING THE ENSUING EMERGENCY LANDING THE AIRPLANE STRUCK A PALM TREE AND CRASHED. THE PILOT TOLD RESCUE PERSONNEL THAT THE AIRPLANE RAN OUT OF GAS. THE WRECKAGE EXAMINATION DISCLOSED NO EVIDENCE OF ANY FUEL IN THE TANKS OR FUEL SPILLAGE. THE PILOT FAILED TO ACCOUNT FOR THE ADDITIONAL FUEL CONSUMPTION USED WHILE EXECUTING TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA027
- Event ID
- 20001212X24633
- Case number
- LAX91LA027
- 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: d8efbeea782d5764c53efadf0201fb5c94b6d4fa362022b64954b544d2199076; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:42:15.576Z.