CHI02LA271 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Rush City Regional Airport (ROS) to Crystal Airport (MIC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02LA271
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N48969
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rush City Regional Airport (ROS), Rush City, MNTo Crystal Airport (MIC), Crystal, MN
- 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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; Wire, transmission; Tree(s)
- 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
While on approach the airplane experienced a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion and the pilot performed a forced landing in a residential area. The pilot reported that he departed at 1815 cdt, with approximately 18.5 gallons of useable fuel, and flew approximately 3.0 hours prior to making a precautionary landing because he was "concerned about fuel." The pilot stated there "appeared to be about 4 gallons in each wing tank. About 8 gallons in all." The pilot reported that the flight to the final destination normally would take approximately 20 minutes and determined there was sufficient fuel to make the flight. The pilot stated he departed at 2110 and while on approach to the final destination the engine began to "sputter." The pilot reported he "believed then that we were running out of fuel." The pilot reported that he was approximately 1.25 miles from the runway and did not have sufficient altitude to glide to the airport. The airplane impacted a power transmission line and trees in a residential area. The pilot reported accident time was 2150. The pilot stated that after the accident he checked the winds aloft forecast and the winds had significantly higher velocities than when he had checked prior to the original 1815 departure.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight preparation/planning, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and the loss of engine power. A factor to the accident was the power transmission line and the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02LA271
- Event ID
- 20020926X05220
- Case number
- CHI02LA271
- 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 2002-09-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 364241fcd4171b89cdd9722f19e82a790f5788da9d4fc4e26933aba7bf71ef96; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:20:31.034Z.