MIA02LA015 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY) to Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA015
- 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 177
- 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
- N177X
- Operator
- Thomas W. Norton · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY), Fayetteville, NCTo Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV), Gainesville, 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Flightcrew › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Flightcrew › Refueling, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the second pilot was flying the airplane from the left seat. Prior to departure from Fayetteville, North Carolina, they had the airplane fueled to the holes in the bottom of the filler collars, which should have given them about 42 gallons of fuel. They did not completely fill the fuel tanks. While approaching to land at their destination, Gainesville, Florida, they elected to fly the instrument landing system approach to give the second pilot practice. The engine lost power about 3 miles from the runway. They turned on the electric fuel boost pump and the engine regained power momentarily. The engine then sputtered and quit., While making a forced landing, the airplane collided with trees. Postcrash examination of the airplane and crash site by an FAA Inspector, Fire Department personnel, and Sheriff's Department personnel showed the airplane contained no usable fuel and that there was no evidence of fuel leakage from the airplane at the crash site or from the airplane in flight.
Probable cause
The failure of both pilots to insure the airplane contained adequate fuel to complete the flight resulting in loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion and collision with trees during a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA015
- Event ID
- 20011114X02237
- Case number
- MIA02LA015
- 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, coordinates. 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: 5cf322c6de67316e31a8bf44f07c5ff8bf2ca48e3409ef41fdcef387210b7ab4; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:49:26.551Z.