NYC06CA188 · Cessna 120
Cessna 120 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Ashland Regional Airport (DWU) to Robert Newlon Field (I41)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06CA188
- 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 120
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 120
- 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
- N1981V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ashland Regional Airport (DWU), Ashland, KYTo Robert Newlon Field (I41), Huntington, WV
- 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 · climb to 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; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Following a complete loss of engine power, the Cessna 120 collided with trees, during an attempted return to the departure airport. According to the pilot, he had not visually checked the fuel quantity in the tanks prior to departure; however, the right fuel tank gauge indicated 1/4 full. The pilot also stated that the fuel gauges were unreliable. When asked if he had used a checklist, he offered that he "didn't use a written checklist, but had gone through a mental one prior to takeoff." The pilot normally flew a Cessna 180 where the middle position of the fuel selector was used for both tanks. On the Cessna 120, however; the middle position was for right tank only. No evidence of preimpact mechanical failures were discovered. Fuel was present in both fuel tanks, the primer was unlocked, and the left fuel gauge indicated 3/8 full. The fuel selector was in the "off" position; however, the mechanic first to respond to the accident site could not recall if he turned the fuel selector "off," or if it was already in that position. According to the Cessna 120 Owners Manual a pilot should "set fuel tank selector to the fullest tank for takeoff," and "not takeoff on less than 1/4 tank."
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel tank selection, which resulted in fuel starvation and a subsequent loss of engine power. A factor in the accident was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06CA188
- Event ID
- 20060907X01309
- Case number
- NYC06CA188
- 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: e77dc41b5be60180a8172581cd8075cf251ab8a19440d8503da4abfae6f1f640; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:38:08.454Z.