NYC99LA081 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG) to Ocean City Municipal Airport (26N)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA081
- 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
- 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 177RG
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N177AR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG), Reading, PATo Ocean City Municipal Airport (26N), Ocean City, NJ
- 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 · climb to cruise
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a climb, the engine started to shake violently and lost power. A forced landing was made to a two-lane highway, and the airplane impacted an overpass support. Inspection of the wreckage revealed the number 2 cylinder had separated from the engine. Examination of the engine revealed sealant applied to the upper portion of the crankcase. The top crankcase fasteners were tested for torque, and began to turn before the specified 96-inch pounds recommended by the manufacturer. When the crankcase was split open, fretting to the parting surfaces was observed. The center main bearing exhibited signs of movement and fretting on the bearing saddle. Fretting was also found on the number 2 and 3 cylinder flanges and corresponding crankcase decks. The engine was last overhauled on July 14, 1994. The engine had accumulated a total time of 1285 hours since the overhaul. The top parting surface of the crankcase was resealed on February 7, 1997, November 20, 1998, and March 17, 1999. The last noted entry for tightening the crankcase bolts was on June 19, 1998. The number 2 and number 3 cylinder were last removed and replaced on April 2, 1997, by an overhaul facility.
Probable cause
The failure of maintenance personnel to properly inspect and torque the crankcase bolts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA081
- Event ID
- 20001205X00385
- Case number
- NYC99LA081
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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 1999-03-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3c971c2bbf88f5e639496713807a03c9c7c13db898ce2013fb0a4541fd05658a; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:36:47.056Z.