WPR10CA144 · Cessna 172
Joseph H. DuRousseau, Trustee Cessna 172 · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Dyer Airport (2Q9) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10CA144
- 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
- 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
- N7499A
- Operator
- Joseph H. DuRousseau, Trustee
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dyer Airport (2Q9), Dyer, NVTo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- 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
- 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 starvation
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he was descending into the landing airport vicinity with the fuel selector on the right tank. The engine then lost power and he switched the fuel selector to the left tank, and then to the "both" position. The propeller continued to windmill and the pilot force-landed the airplane on an interstate. During the landing, the airplane touched down hard and the tailwheel separated from its mounting point and damaged the rudder. The pilot indicated that usually when the airplane is in a descent he positions the fuel selector on the "both" setting. He indicated that in a descent it is important that the selector is positioned to the both position to ensure adequate fuel flow. Additionally, the pilot reported that he may have encountered carburetor icing conditions and he did not immediately apply carburetor heat. According to the Federal Aviation Administration’s carburetor icing chart, icing conditions existed at glide and cruise power. Seven gallons of fuel were found in the airplane's fuel tanks. Following the accident, the engine was started and test run on the airframe using the remaining fuel in the airplane and no anomalies were noted.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot's failure to select the correct fuel selector position.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10CA144
- Event ID
- 20100222X53306
- Case number
- WPR10CA144
- 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: 0aa0d7001cca1768b182a41a1d122438c51f3c689446da3b87981590c4ff8827; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:41:44.638Z.