MIA02LA165 · Cessna T337D
Cessna T337D · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE) to Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA165
- 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 T337D
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N33N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, FLTo Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, 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 · 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 › Fuel supply, 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 he estimated that at takeoff the airplane had about 35 gallons of fuel on board, and after about 45 minutes, while in cruise flight, at an altitude of 4500 feet, the front engine suddenly ceased operating. He stated that he had experienced problems in the past with water in the fuel tanks, so he did not declare an emergency, even after unsuccessful attempts to restart the engine. He said the airplane was maintaining 120 knots, and fully controllable while being only powered by the rear engine. He said that in his mind, it was only water in the left tank, and his destination, Fort Pierce, Florida, was only 10 miles away, so he continued to his destination. After contacting FAA Fort Pierce Air traffic Control Tower, the pilot said that he then entered a right base, turned on to the final approach course for an approach to land on runway 09, lowered his landing gear, set 10 degrees of flaps, and was on final at about 600 feet altitude, when all of a sudden the rear engine ceased operating. He said the only area to land was a small field on the right, so he turned 90 degrees, and entered a dive to prevent the airplane from stalling. The aircraft impacted in an orange grove, rebounded once, and then stopped in a canal. The pilot stated the engines failed due to fuel "starvation", and added that "the airplane had not been loaded with enough fuel..." Prior to the accident, the pilot said that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions to the airplane or to any of its systems.The FAA Inspector who responded to the accident scene stated that during his examination he discovered no fuel in the fuel tanks, and mimimal fuel at the scene.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of the fuel supply, and subsequent fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA165
- Event ID
- 20020910X01564
- Case number
- MIA02LA165
- 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: 3bc6b0c83d0acf0d86bdb9ecfcbfec7b667a51e9922eab76c4a99c3ed2672381; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:35:01.365Z.