FTW02LA182 · Cessna R172K
Cessna R172K · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From 6R9 · Llano, TX to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02LA182
- 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 R172K
- 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
- N758W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6R9 · Llano, TXTo 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
- 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 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
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he performed a pre-flight inspection and noted that the left fuel tank's gauge indicated empty and the right fuel tank's gauge indicated 1/3 to 1/2 full. He started the airplane, taxied to runway 17 for takeoff, and performed an engine run-up. No anomalies were noted during the engine run-up, and the flight departed. The flight remained in the pattern and the pilot executed a touch-and-go landing. During the initial takeoff climb, approximately 200 feet agl, the engine lost power. During the ensuing forced landing to a field, the pilot verified that the fuel selector was in the both position, the throttle and mixture controls were full forward, and that his passenger's lap belt and shoulder harness were secure. The airplane landed in a mesquite covered field, the right wing struck a tree, the airplane pivoted 90 degrees and came to a stop upright. Both fuel tanks were drained; the left tank was empty and the right tank contained 2.1 gallons of fuel. According to the Pilot's Operating Handbook each wing tank is capable of holding 26 gallons of fuel. The fuel system's capacity is 52 gallons, of which 49 gallons are useable in all flight conditions and 3 gallons are unusable.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to refuel the airplane, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02LA182
- Event ID
- 20020618X00915
- Case number
- FTW02LA182
- 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: f092574f79c7a4a61f633a89cb29e30d8cf83d5db050c5e232b63ed4a0328945; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:50:28.095Z.