WPR15LA077 · Cessna 172D
Cessna 172D · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Oceano County Airport (KL52) to Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (KFCH)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA077
- 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 172D
- 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
- N2948U
- Operator
- Graham Robert A
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oceano County Airport (KL52), OCEANIO, CATo Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (KFCH), Fresno, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1963)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Wire
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, about 3 miles from the destination airport, the engine experienced a loss of power. During the forced landing to a nearby field, the airplane collided with an unseen set of power lines before touching down in the field. Both the left wing and the empennage were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that, when the engine lost power, the left wing fuel gauge was indicating that the tank was empty and the right wing fuel gauge was indicating that the tank was 1/4 to 1/2 full of fuel. Postaccident examination of the airframe revealed that the fuel system was not compromised, and no evidence of fuel was found in the airplane's fuel system. The examination of the engine revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel planning, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA077
- Event ID
- 20150105X21217
- Case number
- WPR15LA077
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2015-01-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4d756c83b5fad65c7c6537c67f4f651ac384a6f7c3e830f243076353a7f2a4c9; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:00:42.631Z.