ATL95LA025 · Cessna 175A
Cessna 175A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Barnwell Regional Airport (BNL) to Oconee County Regional Airport (CEU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL95LA025
- 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 175A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N6949E
- Operator
- Cothran, Freddie M. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Barnwell Regional Airport (BNL), Barnwell, SCTo Oconee County Regional Airport (CEU), Clemson, SC
- 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 · 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
- Accessory drive assembly, drive gear › Foreign object damage
- Ignition system, magneto › Sheared
- Unqualified person › Maintenance, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Greenwood, SC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE LOST ENGINE POWER 39 MINUTES INTO THE FLIGHT. THE PILOT MADE A FORCED LANDING AT A GOLF COURSE. UPON LANDING, THE AIRPLANE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER. A POST-ACCIDENT ENGINE INSPECTION REVEALED BOTH MAGNETOS SHAFTS WERE SHEARED BECAUSE OF A FOREIGN OBJECT WHICH HAD BEEN TRAPPED BETWEEN THE RIGHT MAGNETO GEAR AND THE ACCESSORY CASE. PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT, UNAPPROVED MAINTENANCE HAD BEEN DONE ON THE AIRPLANE BY AN UNCERTIFICATED PERSON. DURING THE MAINTENANCE WORK, WHEN THE ENGINE STARTED IT KICKED BACK AND BROKE THE GEAR ON THE STARTER DRIVE. A MAGNET WAS USED TO RETRIEVE THE BROKEN GEAR FROM THE REAR OF THE ENGINE. THE ACCESSORY CASE WAS NOT REMOVED TO RECOVER THE REMAINDER OF THE BROKEN GEAR PARTICLES.
Probable cause
UNAPPROVED MAINTENANCE WORK DONE BY UNCERTIFICATED PERSONS WHICH RESULTED IN A BROKEN STARTER DRIVE WHICH WAS NOT PROPERLY REMOVED FROM THE ENGINE. THE PARTICLES SHEARED THE MAGNETO SHAFTS CAUSING THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL95LA025
- Event ID
- 20001206X02681
- Case number
- ATL95LA025
- 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: 89449dab413c34ef700b5f156b49e6f9e4dda3d580746af68a776684cd82deef; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:25:34.626Z.