NYC03LA139 · Cessna 172K
Phoenix Aviation Cessna 172K · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK) to Martin State Airport (MTN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03LA139
- 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 172K
- 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
- N5138G
- Operator
- Phoenix Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), Frederick, MDTo Martin State Airport (MTN), Baltimore, MD
- 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; 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
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 was returning to an airport located inside an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). The pilot had filed a flight plan and was informed that the flight plan was valid for two hours after his proposed departure time of 0900. When the pilot contacted air traffic control (ATC) at 1114 and attempted to obtain clearance to enter the ADIZ, an air traffic controller was not able to locate a flight plan for the flight, and at 1126, the pilot was instructed to contact a flight service station to file a flight plan. The pilot reported to the Safety Board that he was not able to contact the flight service station; and made contact with air traffic control several times, while holding for a clearance into the ADIZ. At 1208:23 the airplane was cleared to land, and at 1214:16, the pilot declared an emergency due to fuel exhaustion. The airplane struck trees during the ensuing forced landing. The pilot further reported that while awaiting clearance into the ADIZ, he observed the fuel gages getting "pretty low" and estimated he had about 30 minutes of fuel remaining. The engine lost power about 15 or 20 minutes later. Review of communication transcripts revealed that the pilot did not inform ATC of the airplane's fuel status, nor did he inform ATC that he was unable to contact flight service to file a flight plan. Review of an aeronautical chart and an airport facility directory revealed that an airport was located about 8 miles east-northeast of the airplane's holding position. The airport was located outside of the ADIZ area and provided fuel services.
Probable cause
The pilot's in-flight decision to not land and refuel, which resulted in fuel exhaustion. A factor in the accident was the pilot's inadequate communications.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03LA139
- Event ID
- 20030714X01077
- Case number
- NYC03LA139
- 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: 015f973462f8792c65d4755bd4785ff84cc8726732e296f6227dd33c88af0459; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:26:02.454Z.