ERA09LA015 · Cessna 172 N
Cessna 172 N · Accident: fuel contamination during initial climb
From Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM) to Huntsville, AL
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA015
- 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 172 N
- 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
- N734BL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM), Kissimmee, FLTo Huntsville, AL
- 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
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
An annual inspection was completed 2 days prior to the accident. Later that evening, the airplane was fueled with 32 gallons of 100 low-lead aviation gasoline. After the refueling a maintenance technician drained a "significant amount" of water from the tanks and the fuel strainer. The next day, the technician informed the pilot about the water he found in the fuel. The pilot sampled fuel from each of the two fuel tank sump drains, but did not observe any water in the samples. He also drained fuel from the fuel strainer, but he did not capture that fuel. The pilot then conducted several takeoffs and landings over a period of about 1/2 hour, and the airplane "ran fine." He parked the airplane, left the airport, and returned the next day for a cross-country flight. During the preflight, the pilot conducted a similar fuel sampling routine, and did not observe any water in the fuel. With the fuel selector valve set to both tanks, the airplane began its takeoff roll and experienced a total loss of engine power during initial climb. The airplane struck a sports goal post during the forced landing on an athletic field that was located approximately 1/4 mile beyond the runway end. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed several ounces of water in the carburetor, the fuel strainer, and the right fuel tank. After the accident, the pilot told investigators that he "typically" obtained "some water," which he quantified as approximately 1 inch of water in the 3/4 inch-diameter sample container, when he sampled the left fuel tank. The left fuel tank cap was found to have a loose fit, and a 0.028 inch feeler gauge was able to be inserted between the cap gasket and its seat. The airplane had not been flown during the 10 months preceding the day prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in a total loss of engine power during initial climb due to fuel contamination. Contributing to the accident was a fuel tank cap that did not seal properly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA015
- Event ID
- 20081012X85752
- Case number
- ERA09LA015
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: 6089b872d4ffb1c49b5c20afebc29f480178e92a5f600d6ce10253769448a11a; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:27:37.113Z.