CHI87LA103 · Cessna 172M
Advantage Engineering Cessna 172M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) to 5I1 · Lexington, KY
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI87LA103
- 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
- N19984
- Operator
- Advantage Engineering
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), RALEIGH-DURHAM, NCTo 5I1 · Lexington, KY
- 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 › Fuel consumption calculations, improper
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT'S ORIGINAL DESTN WAS LEXINGTON, KY, HOWEVER BETWEEN BLUEFIELD, KY AND LEXINGTON, HE AMENDED HIS DESTN TO INDIANAPOLIS, IN. THE PLT STATED THAT FUEL CONSUMPTION WAS CALCULATED AS 7.1 GPH, BUT HE DID NOT TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE CESSNA 172 TIME/FUEL TO CLIMB CHART OR THE 10% VARIANCE FOR ACFT/ENGINE CONDITION, ACCESSORY CONDITION, OR TURBULENCE. FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATIONS AT 7.8 GPH (7.1 GPH CRUISE CONSUMPTION RATE + 10% VARIANCE) INDICATE THAT FOLLOWING TAKEOFF AND CLIMB, THE REMAINING FLT ENDURANCE WAS ABOUT 5.1 HOURS. THE PLT DEPARTED RALEIGH-DURHAM, NC AT 1530 EST AND HE REPORTED FUEL EXHAUSTION TO THE INDIANAPOLIS INTERNATIONAL APPROACH CONTROL AT 2030 EST. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH AN OVERPASS SUPPORT STRUCTURE WHILE LANDING IN THE EASTBOUND LANES OF I-74, ABOUT FOUR MILES EAST-SOUTHEAST OF SHELBYVILLE, IN. AFTER THE ACCIDENT, A TOTAL OF APPRX ONE CUP OF FUEL WAS DRAINED FROM THE ACFT WING SUMPS AND GASCOLATOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI87LA103
- Event ID
- 20001213X30410
- Case number
- CHI87LA103
- 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 1987-03-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a05679b121b86873957c61b5eff8fada747c398100725022f4e90456dc0eeab6; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:23:46.746Z.