CEN10CA178 · Cessna 172N
Rhinelander Flying Service Cessna 172N · Accident: fuel exhaustion en route
From Wausau Downtown Airport (AUW) to Des Moines International Airport (DSM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA178
- 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 172N
- 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
- N883AV
- Operator
- Rhinelander Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wausau Downtown Airport (AUW), Wausau, WITo Des Moines International Airport (DSM), Des Moines, IA
- 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 · cruise
- 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 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the cross-country flight proceeded normally until approximately 25 miles from the destination. At that time, the engine speed decreased unexpectedly. His attempts to increase engine power by pushing in the throttle had no effect. The pilot stated that he switched the fuel selector to the right tank and then to the left tank with no effect. He returned the fuel selector to the “both” setting and the engine regained power. The pilot then elected to immediately divert to the nearest airport; however, the engine lost power again and he executed a forced landing to a corn field. The airplane nosed over and was substantially damaged. A postaccident inspection did not reveal any anomalies associated with a preimpact engine failure or malfunction. No evidence of a fuel spill was observed at the accident site, and no fuel was observed in the fuel tanks after the accident.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion as a result of the pilot's inadequate in-flight fuel monitoring.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA178
- Event ID
- 20100331X72817
- Case number
- CEN10CA178
- 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, 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: 114372daf5dc80e65428fd792734e7707c1958f2736bbac5e1bf8b1ce48b14db; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:48:25.776Z.