Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 65; Flight Crew Total 590; Flight Crew Type 220
Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition
Aircraft; Human Factors
On our way from ZZZ to ZZZ1 at 4;500 ft. MSL we began to experience an engine failure; I executed proper technique for troubleshoot as well as ran our emergency checklist. I was on flight following and at the time was on with ZZZ Center. After trouble shoot and checklist were unsuccessful I let Center know I needed to request priority handling. I was not currently close enough to make it to an airport so I immediately began looking for a field. I chose my field and successfully got the plane safely on the ground not causing harm to the plane; myself; passenger; and the field in which I landed. After we were on the ground I visually inspected the fuel tanks to see if that was the issue. The tanks were completely empty to my surprise. During preflight I visually inspected the fuel tanks and sumped them properly. After landing and with empty tanks both fuel gauges were still reading that we had plenty of fuel. It was at this point I realized that we had inoperative fuel gauges and a possible fuel leak somewhere. After talking to authorities and an inspector from the FAA; the best course of action was to get a mechanic to come out and verify that we did indeed have an issue and to record it in the maintenance records. After we were able to accomplish that; we refueled both tanks and were able to depart and land at the nearest field which was ZZZ3. After looking back at the situation I think I could have prevented the situation by being more diligent when it came to preflight inspection and fuel planning.
Pilot reported that fuel exhaustion caused by inaccurate fuel gauges resulted in a forced landing.