MIA05LA155 · Cessna 172M
Northern States Aviation Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Peter Prince Field (2R4) to 2R4
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05LA155
- 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 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
- N901NS
- Operator
- Northern States Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Peter Prince Field (2R4), Milton, FLTo 2R4
- 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
- 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 starvation; Stall/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- 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 stated that he had no recollection of the accident. Another pilot/witness stated that he was also a contract pilot working for the same survey company, and he had been conversing with the accident pilot while conducting aerial surveys in his airplane at the time. The witness said he observed events and heard radio communications during and after the accident. The witness said he heard the accident pilot say that his airplane's engine started running rough, and about 20 seconds later he heard a "mayday" call on the radio, and that the accident pilot said that his airplane's engine had ceased operating, and he was going down. He said he first saw the accident airplane when it was at an altitude of about 800 feet, and he saw the pilot divert to an open field and set up for a left downwind. The witness said he then saw the pilot "crank" the airplane around in a tight turn to avoid power lines. According to the witness, the airplane hit the ground in a left spin, nose down, and came to an abrupt stop. According to an FAA inspector, shortly after the accident occurred the accident airplane was defueled to prevent a safety hazard, and about 10 to 15 gallons of fuel was removed from the right wing. No fuel was found in the left wing. The inspector further stated that the fuel selector had been set to the left tank position, and there was no evidence of significant fuel spillage at the scene. In addition, technical representatives from Cessna Aircraft Company, and Textron Lycoming Engines, performed detailed examinations on the airplane and its systems under the oversight of an FAA inspector, and the investigation confirmed that the fuel selector valve had been set to the left position. No other preaccident anomalies were noted to exist with the airplane or any of its systems
Probable cause
The pilot's mismanagement of available fuel and continued operation with the fuel selector set to the left tank position, which resulted in fuel starvation and subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05LA155
- Event ID
- 20050923X01516
- Case number
- MIA05LA155
- 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: a0974d225cff5efae5217471fe4515727db3c333a7d6df9c543640306ce09ed7; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:03:29.146Z.