LAX04CA024 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH) to Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04CA024
- 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 172N
- 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
- N738YL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH), Fresno Chandler, CATo Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC), Sacramento, CA
- 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 starvation
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, 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 engine lost engine power during flight and the airplane nosed over during an emergency landing in a field. The pilot reported that after an uneventful departure, he was en route when the engine lost power. He applied carburetor heat and placed the mixture in the full forward position. He turned toward a nearby airport while attempting restart procedures; the engine was unresponsive. While on final, the pilot realized that he was not going to make the airport and landed the airplane in a field. As the main wheels touched down, the airplane nosed over. The pilot did not report any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures. An FAA inspector examined the airplane and found the fuel selector on the left tank. Approximately 1/2 gallon of fuel was recovered from the left fuel tank; approximately 20 gallons of fuel were recovered from the right tank. After the engine failure, the pilot did not switch fuel tanks. The pilot operating handbook for the Cessna 172N states that in the event of an engine failure, the pilot should move the fuel selector valve into the "BOTH" position.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate fuel management, which resulted in fuel starvation and a loss of engine power. Also causal was the pilot's failure to follow engine out emergency procedures as defined by the pilot operating handbook.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04CA024
- Event ID
- 20031222X02081
- Case number
- LAX04CA024
- 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: 411f6ebf3bf28628ef4bccb98ea367e597c2d40000185d5f3d1c700b2803848d; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:16:56.626Z.