CEN23LA393 · Cessna R172K
Cessna R172K · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From South St Paul Municipal Airport/Richard E Fleming Field (SGS) to Waupaca Municipal Airport (PCZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA393
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 R172K
- 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
- N172SP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From South St Paul Municipal Airport/Richard E Fleming Field (SGS), St. Paul, MNTo Waupaca Municipal Airport (PCZ), Waupaca, WI
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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)
- 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 while en route to his planned fuel stop destination, the engine experienced a slight hesitation. The pilot then changed course to the nearest airport and turned on the auxiliary fuel pump. The engine roughness stopped for about 15 seconds, then occurred again, and the engine subsequently lost total power. Unable to maintain altitude and reach the nearest airport, the pilot conducted a forced landing to a roadway. During the forced landing, the airplane’s left wing tip struck a roadway sign, and the right float impacted a moving vehicle that was on the roadway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing rear spar. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the left fuel tank contained no usable fuel, and the right tank contained about 14 gallons of fuel. The fuel selector was found in the left fuel tank position. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate fuel management which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA393
- Event ID
- 20230905192994
- Case number
- CEN23LA393
- 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, 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: 2448fc5e77ed2a3d5a75b737637fd43ac528e32a0fe8fd72d42c123c068df5f1; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:04:46.511Z.