NYC06LA124 · Cessna C-172N
Cessna C-172N · Accident: loss of engine power during landing
From Dewitt Field - Old Town Municipal Airport (OLD) to Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06LA124
- 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 C-172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna C-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
- N738HE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dewitt Field - Old Town Municipal Airport (OLD), Old Town, METo Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY), Vineyard Haven, MA
- 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
- Landing
- 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 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, improper
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to departure, the pilot requested fuel be added to the airplane until it reached "two inches below the filler neck." He reported that he was concerned with the weight and balance of the airplane and therefore did not want to fill the tanks to full. The pilot departed and flew at an altitude of 1,500 to 2,000 feet, and a power setting of 2,500 rpm. While on final approach to the destination airport, the engine "ran rough and sputtered," and then lost power. The pilot declared an emergency and reported to air traffic controllers that he was "out of fuel." He then unsuccessfully attempted to restart the engine, and performed a forced landing to a field. A State Police Trooper observed no fuel in either fuel tank upon his arrival to the scene, and the pilot stated to him that he "ran out of fuel." A review of the fuel log from the departure airport revealed the airplane was fueled with 14.2 gallons of fuel prior to the pilot's departure. According to the Cessna 172N Pilot Operating Handbook, the airplane's engine consumed approximately 8.4 gallons per hour at an altitude of 2,000 feet, and a power setting of 2,500 rpm.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper preflight planning and improper fuel consumption calculations, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06LA124
- Event ID
- 20060618X00765
- Case number
- NYC06LA124
- 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: d251db4397f740bee037ca5a356b7422d228fe287b7e2c09b7b06bf27414ee02; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:45:48.399Z.