NYC03LA127 · Cessna 172H
Cessna 172H · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Wilmington Airport (ILG) to N70 · Perkasie, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03LA127
- 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 172H
- 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
- N3027U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilmington Airport (ILG), Wilmington, DETo N70 · Perkasie, PA
- 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
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 reported that he initially departed with full fuel tanks, flew about 1 hour, 30 minutes, and then experienced a loss of engine power. The pilot then performed a forced landing to a field, and the airplane came to rest inverted. A witness stated that before the initial departure, the pilot had inquired about purchasing fuel. After some delay, an airport employee offered to fuel the airplane, but the pilot subsequently declined the offer. The witnesses added that according to the aircraft rental log, the pilot departed with the fuel tanks about half full, and flew approximately 2 hours, 10 minutes. Examination of the wreckage revealed that no fuel was present in the fuel tanks, fuel strainer, carburetor, or carburetor bowl.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/preparation which resulted in fuel exhaustion during cruise flight. The pilot's inadequate preflight preparation in which he failed to refuel the airplane is a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03LA127
- Event ID
- 20030623X00930
- Case number
- NYC03LA127
- 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 2003-06-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8ef287b500758f048985deb8dc0267ec504829958ff98dbd4c495855f9eadbca; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:27:36.760Z.