FTW96FA108 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Ozark Regional Airport (BPK) to 1M1 · N. LITTLE ROCK, AR
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96FA108
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N757UK
- Operator
- Harry D Barrett · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ozark Regional Airport (BPK), Mountain Home, ARTo 1M1 · N. LITTLE ROCK, AR
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After about 75 minutes of uneventful flying, the engine RPM began to fluctuate. While attempting to adjust throttle and mixture, the pilot noticed an engine RPM 'drop into the teens.' Level flight could not be maintained. Gusty winds were encountered during a circling approach to a large, flat field. During the last descending turn, the pilot recalled that the airplane's nose was 'diving quickly toward the ground', and that the stall warning activated briefly. Witnesses said the aircraft was maneuvering slowly and low to the ground, then it descended steeply and crashed. Ground scars revealed that the aircraft impacted left wing down and about 45 degrees nose down relative to the terrain. Atmospheric conditions were not conducive for carburetor icing. Fuel samples from the aircraft and refueling source were found to be within standards. With the exception of worn/fouled spark plugs and out of tolerance valve tappet clearances, no conclusive mechanical anomalies were found. The engine was operated to 2360 RPM in a factory test cell (but the run was terminated due to vibrations induced from impact damage).
Probable cause
loss of engine power for undetermined reason(s), and failure of the pilot to maintain adequate airspeed, while maneuvering for a forced landing, which resulted in an inadvertent stall at low altitude. The gusty wind condition was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96FA108
- Event ID
- 20001208X05128
- Case number
- FTW96FA108
- 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: 7568488c20ca6dbe5ebc18f54a43d9d92ff73e6e9a91f5cbe0a29b1ad0b309b2; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:54:41.296Z.