Inland Aviation Serv Cessna 172M incident
Cessna 172M · Incident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Holy Cross Airport (HCA) to Aniak Airport (PANI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC04IA078
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 172M
- 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
- N1453V
- Operator
- Inland Aviation Serv
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Holy Cross Airport (HCA), Holy Cross, AKTo Aniak Airport (PANI), Aniak, AK
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot was conducting an air taxi passenger flight when the airplane's engine lost power and he was forced to make an emergency landing. The airplane received minor damage during the subsequent landing on tundra-covered terrain. The flight consisted of four takeoffs and landings, and had covered about 160 miles. An FAA inspector inspected the airplane, and found no usable amount of fuel in either wing tank, with no signs of leakage or spillage. According to the FAA inspector, the pilot indicated he added fuel prior to his departure, but did not observe the actual amount of fuel in the tanks. In his written report to the NTSB, the pilot did not indicate that there were any mechanical problems with the airplane. When the airplane was refueled, it started and ran without difficulties.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision which resulted in fuel exhaustion and the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC04IA078
- Event ID
- 20040727X01071
- Case number
- ANC04IA078
- 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 2004-07-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 27f37339a0d98ffd4482124692fee36e7a0e77c499a3192522f6eb328e45b6ab; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:21:44.077Z.