SEA02LA113 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From 76S · Oak Harbor, WA to 75S · Skagit Regional, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02LA113
- 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
- N29441
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 76S · Oak Harbor, WATo 75S · Skagit Regional, 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 base
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Because he knew his aircraft was very low on fuel, the pilot considered refueling before departing Oak Harbor Airport. However, since there was no fuel available at the airport itself, he dipped the aircraft's fuel tanks with a fuel quantity measuring device, and estimated the remaining fuel to be around four to five gallons. Based on that indicated quantity, he elected to depart for Skagit Regional Airport. As the aircraft approached the airport on an extended base leg at approximately 1,400 feet above the terrain, the engine suddenly lost power. The pilot therefore activated the electric fuel pump, and the engine restarted and produced power for about another 30 seconds before losing power again. Because there were trees between the aircraft and the runway, the pilot decided to attempt a forced landing on a road in a nearby berry field. The touchdown was uneventful, however, the aircraft's wing collided with a portable outhouse while on the landing roll. A post-accident inspection of the aircraft determined that except for a very small amount of residual fuel, the aircraft's fuel tanks had been run dry.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to accurately determine the amount of fuel onboard. Factors included trees, and a portable restroom.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02LA113
- Event ID
- 20020628X01003
- Case number
- SEA02LA113
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-06-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 02acae8065468f29502ad20c7db01a0c87cfd57d436c3751898e4ee144a33127; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:47:48.442Z.