LAX82DA057 · Cessna 177B
Long Beach Flying Club Cessna 177B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From EKO · Long Beach, CA to LGB · Elko, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82DA057
- 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 177B
- 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
- N35289
- Operator
- Long Beach Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From EKO · Long Beach, CATo LGB · Elko, NV
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Siphoning
- Fuel system, cap › Deteriorated
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE OWNER OF THE AIRCRAFT STATED THAT HE HAD "TOPPED THE TANKS" AFTER THE PREVIOUS FLIGHT. THE PILOT OF THIS FLIGHT SAID THAT HE DID NOT VISUALLY CHECK THE FUEL BEFORE TAKEOFF.DURING FLIGHT, THE RIGHT FUEL GAUGE CONTINUED TO INDICATE FULL. ABOUT 15 MILES FROM ELKO, THE ENGINE BEGAN LOSING POWER. AT THAT TIME, THE LEFT FUEL GAUGE INDICATED 1/4 FULL AND THE RIGHT GUAGE STILL INDICATED FULL. THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO RESTART THE ENGINE BY USING EITHER TANK. THE PLANE WAS DAMAGED DURING A FORCED LANDING ON A ROAD. AN INSPECTION REVEALED NO FUEL IN THE FUEL TANKS. WITH THE MASTER SWITCH ON, THE LEFT FUEL GAUGE INDICATED EMPTY AND THE RIGHT GAUGE INDICATED FULL. FUEL STAINS WERE FOUND ON THE TOPS OF BOTH WINGS. A PRESSURE CHECK REVEALED EXTENSIVE LEAKAGE FROM THE LEFT WING. THE LEFT WING FUEL CAP PLIABLE SEAL WAS FOUND TO BE DRIED OUT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82DA057
- Event ID
- 20020917X02168
- Case number
- LAX82DA057
- 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: 833745baecf3c31ee9609deb92010bfe1b6c80ce8f18bc55bdd0d21756b287b8; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:44:25.477Z.