SEA02LA093 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Undetermined, WA to Anacortes Airport (74S)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02LA093
- 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 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
- N496HM
- Operator
- Clarence A. Miller · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Undetermined, WATo Anacortes Airport (74S), Anacortes, WA
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After reaching his initial destination on a round-robin cross-country flight, the pilot discovered that the runway was closed for repair, so he flew back along his outbound route looking for a place to refuel. He landed at an agricultural airstrip, but determined that there was no fuel available there. After departing the agricultural airstrip, he decided to land at a municipal airport in a nearby town, but was unable to locate the runway. He then made the decision to return to his initial departure point without stopping to take on fuel. While on final approach to the initial departure point, the aircraft ran out of fuel, and the pilot was forced to land on a nearby gravel beach. Although the touchdown was uneventful, during the landing roll, the aircraft nosed over on the soft terrain. According to the pilot, he did not keep an accurate tally of his fuel burn and total time airborne, and in considering his fuel situation while en route, he forgot to take into account a one hour and 40 minute flight on the previous day. It was also determined that the fuel quantity gauges did not accurately reflect the total amount of fuel onboard the aircraft while airborne.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to continue his flight after failing to take on fuel at a planned en route refueling stop, which lead to a loss of power from fuel exhaustion while on final approach to his round-robin final destination. Factors include inaccurate fuel quantity gauges, no suitable terrain on which to execute the forced landing, and soft terrain where the pilot ultimately decided to put the aircraft down.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02LA093
- Event ID
- 20020612X00860
- Case number
- SEA02LA093
- 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: a3e8f71338dadb8a941a99c85fd97232f2af947229160d7ca6d04330d94a24cd; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:42:46.475Z.