SEA06CA099 · Cessna 152
Skinner Aviation Cessna 152 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Plush, OR to Ashland Municipal Airport Sumner Parker Field (S03)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06CA099
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N69183
- Operator
- Skinner Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Plush, ORTo Ashland Municipal Airport Sumner Parker Field (S03), Ashland, OR
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Partial 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
- 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
In a telephone conversation and subsequent written statement, the pilot reported that during the return leg to Ashland, he become disoriented and requested vectors to the nearest airport because of concerns about the aircraft's total time aloft and "...my fuel situation." Seattle Center advised the pilot that Chiloquin, Oregon, was approximately 10 miles north-northwest of his position, however it was not known if fuel was available at the airport and the ATC Specialist asked the pilot if Klamath Falls, approximately 35 miles from his location, would be an option. The pilot believed he had sufficient fuel to complete the flight to Klamath, however approximately 2 miles from reaching the airport the airplane's engine began to surge and eventually lost power. The pilot stated that he was unable to reach the runway and elected to land in an open field. As the airplane touched down in the field, it encountered soft muddy terrain and "flipped nose over." The pilot reported that he believed he had approximately 15 minutes of fuel remaining when the airplane lost engine power, however he later stated the airplane "just ran out of fuel." The airplane was "topped" prior to departing Ashland. The Hobbs meter indicated that the airplane had flown approximately 3.6 hours since it had been fueled.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight decision by failing to refuel while en route, resulting in fuel exhaustion and the loss of engine power. Soft terrain was a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06CA099
- Event ID
- 20060609X00728
- Case number
- SEA06CA099
- 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: ed7d9b8a7c3ad755f2b7fcf7208f47616d295b318995d89c5f6631a67efa2067; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:46:29.756Z.