MIA02LA006 · Cessna 170
Cessna 170 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Bennettsville, SC to Moore County Airport (SOP)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA006
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 170
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N4180V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bennettsville, SCTo Moore County Airport (SOP), Southern Pines, NC
- 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 starvation
- 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
- Fuel system, line › Collapsed
- Fuel system, vent › Blocked(total)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was flown a total of approximately 2 hours 25 minutes on two separate flights since the fuel tanks were filled. The first flight was approximately 2 hours duration taking place 1 day before the accident. The second flight lasted approximately 25 minutes and took place earlier on the accident date departing with nearly full fuel in the left fuel tank and approximately1 hour of fuel remaining in the right fuel tank. The pilot stated that after takeoff on the accident flight with the fuel selector positioned to the "both" position, the engine quit when the flight was approximately 200 feet above ground level. The pilot maneuvered the airplane for a forced landing in a field and while in a foward slip; the right main landing gear collided with a ditch. The right wing then contacted the ditch and the airplane came to rest. Postaccident examination of the airplane by the pilot/owner who is also an airframe and powerplant mechanic revealed that the vent line which connects to both fuel tanks was blocked near the left wing root area. Additionally, the fuel supply line between the fuel selector valve and the fuel strainer was found to be kinked and foreign matter was found inside the kinked line. The owner/pilot reported that the damage to the line was not the result of the forced landing and subsequent damage to the airplane.
Probable cause
The blockage of the fuel vent and also the collapsed fuel supply line resulting in the total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA006
- Event ID
- 20011018X02105
- Case number
- MIA02LA006
- 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: c44566057e948ff02389b5cf8d9e83840b4f6ea2816edbf48c3afdc0c80e69e9; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:32:01.516Z.