ERA21FA029 · Cessna 172 H
Cessna 172 H · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Back Achers Airport (8FL3) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21FA029
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 H
- 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
- N724BC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Back Achers Airport (8FL3), Belleview, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1966)
- 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
- 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 control in flight
- 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
Radar data revealed that, about 20 minutes after departure, the airplane’s groundspeed decreased from 94 knots to 47 knots, and the airplane entered a descending left turn. Data from the airplane’s onboard engine analyzer revealed that this deceleration was preceded by a sudden and simultaneous drop in the airplane’s fuel flow rate and exhaust gas temperature (EGT) values, consistent with a loss of engine power. Following the accident, less than 1 gallon of fuel was recovered from the intact right wing fuel tank, and about 1 cup was recovered from the left wing (which was breached from impact). About 1 teaspoon of cloudy water was found in the airframe fuel filter bowl and the screen was partially blocked with debris. A review of the airplane’s fueling and flight records, including data from the onboard engine analyzer, revealed there would have been about 1 gallon of usable fuel onboard about the time of the loss of engine power. Examination of the engine revealed no other mechanical deficiencies that would have precluded normal operation at the time of the accident, and the total loss of engine power was likely the result of fuel exhaustion. Following the loss of engine power it is likely that the pilot exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack (as evidenced by the low recorded ground speed during the final moments of the flight), which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin and loss of control. Though Diazapam (Valium) and its metabolites were detected in the pilot’s system in post-accident toxicology testing, it could not be determined if the pilot’s use of diazepam contributed to the accident.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing was the pilot’s exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin and loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21FA029
- Event ID
- 20201025102186
- Case number
- ERA21FA029
- 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, cause areas. 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: 86e3ef53532e3b4fda81773d76074d63ab96026a62421cec364fcd800a9eb707; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:21:33.559Z.