ATL82DA097 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From BROOK HAVEN, MS to BROOK HAVEN, MS
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL82DA097
- 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
- 0
- 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 172
- 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
- N6444B
- Operator
- Pete Stanley (also William Sta
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From BROOK HAVEN, MSTo BROOK HAVEN, MS
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT VISUALLY CHECKED THE FUEL LEVEL BEFORE TAKEOFF AND ESTIMATED THAT HE HAD 15 TO 16 GALLONS REMAINING. SINCE THE FLIGHT WAS PLANNED FOR 30 TO 45 MINUTES, NO FUEL WAS ADDED. HOWEVER, AFTER FLYING FOR 30 TO 35 MINUTES, THE ENGINE LOST POWER. THE PILOT LANDED IN A PASTURE, BUT WAS FORCED TO STEER THE AIRCRAFT TOWARD TREES TO AVOID HITTING COWS. THE PLANE STRUCK TWO TREES AND A FENCE AND WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THERE WAS ONLY TRACES OF FUEL REMAINING IN THE FUEL TANKS. THE PILOT SUSPECTED THAT FUEL HAD DRAINED FROM THE AIRCRAFT. SOME BEADS OF FUEL WERE PRESENT ON THE GASCOLATOR DRAIN, BUT THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF A LARGE FUEL LEAK. A CHECK OF THE FUEL GAUGES REVEALED THAT THE RIGHT GAUGE INDICATED THE TANK WAS EMPTY, BUT THE LEFT GAUGE WAS READING BETWEEN 1/4 FULL AND EMPTY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL82DA097
- Event ID
- 20020917X01698
- Case number
- ATL82DA097
- 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: b90e3c7a8a98f2ce5cb217ce2a12b856b1d3512087f1f31e2a397c5a8b1b22ac; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:26:47.470Z.