ATL88LA002 · Cessna 172F
Cessna 172F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Roy E. Ray Airport (5R7) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL88LA002
- 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 172F
- 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
- N5647R
- Operator
- Allen Sykes
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roy E. Ray Airport (5R7), Bayou La Batre, ALTo not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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/mush
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not obtained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ENGINE LOST PWR SHORTLY AFTER T/O. THE ENGINE REGAINED PWR AS THE PLT WAS ABOUT TO MAKE A FORCED LDG IN A FIELD. HE ABORTED THE LDG ATTEMPT AND ATTEMPTED TO MAKE IT BACK TO THE AIRSTRIP. THE ENGINE SUBSEQUENTLY LOST PWR AGAIN. THE PLT STRETCHED HIS GLIDE TO AVOID IMPACTING TREES, AND INSUFFICIENT AIRSPEED REMAINED TO FLARE THE ACFT PRIOR TO LDG IN ANOTHER FIELD. THE PLT REPORTED THAT THE LT FUEL TANK GAUGE INDICATED 'EMPTY' AND THE RT TANK GAUGE INDICATED '1/4' FULL AFTER THE ENGINE INITIALLY LOST PWR. HE NOTED THAT THE FUEL SLECTOR WAS IN THE 'BOTH' POSITION AT THE TIME. POST-CRASH EXAM OF THE ACFT BY ANOTHER PLT REVEALED THAT THE LT FUEL TANK WAS EMPTY AND THAT THE RT TANK CONTAINED ABOUT A PINT OF FUEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL88LA002
- Event ID
- 20001213X32247
- Case number
- ATL88LA002
- 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: 35d729e9a43bc493804e6a9bd6f1b9c6e25e0f82f2d2e2b2be7a8165be00d4f1; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:43:04.686Z.