NYC94LA108 · Cessna 172N
Emerson Aviation Cessna 172N · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Laconia Municipal Airport (LCI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC94LA108
- 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 172N
- 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
- N734TU
- Operator
- Emerson Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laconia Municipal Airport (LCI), Laconia, NHTo not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Induction air ducting › Blocked(partial)
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, 100-hour inspection, inadequate
- Terrain condition › Rough/uneven
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bristol, NH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS CONDUCTING A COMMERCIAL SIGHTSEEING FLIGHT. HE STATED THAT WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT, THERE WAS A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. HE ATTEMPTED TO REGAIN ENGINE POWER, BUT THE ENGINE DID NOT RESPOND. HE INITIATED A FORCED LANDING TO A FIELD. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED AND DAMAGED THE FIREWALL. AN FAA INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE ENGINE AND FOUND A RAG IN THE CARBURETOR HEAT DUCTING. THIS WAS THE AIRPLANE'S THIRD FLIGHT SINCE AN ANNUAL INSPECTION.
Probable cause
the failure of maintenance personnel to remove an object from the carburetor heat duct during annual inspection which blocked induction air and resulted in the loss of engine power, and the subsequent collision with the terrain during a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC94LA108
- Event ID
- 20001206X01828
- Case number
- NYC94LA108
- 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: investigation status. 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: 635e81f4bc6129f9b3ef15af19f99868fb702c9194d69f940aa5a47f3b7ce8b4; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:35:21.717Z.