IAD96LA053 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Hickory Regional Airport (HKY) to B17 · BEDFORD COUNTY, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD96LA053
- 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 172
- 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
- N108RV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hickory Regional Airport (HKY), Hickory, NCTo B17 · BEDFORD COUNTY, PA
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane's engine lost power at night when he was about ten miles south of Roanoke airport at 11,500 feet MSL. The pilot requested and received clearance for an emergency landing at Roanoke, and ATC vectored the airplane for a straight-in approach. The pilot reported the airport lights in sight from six miles and was cleared to land. The pilot stated that when the airplane was about 1/2 mile from the runway, he realized that he would not be able to reach the runway. He landed in a shopping mall parking lot about 1/2 mile south of the airport. During the landing, the airplane struck a vehicle and a light pole. Postaccident examination did not revealed a preimpact mechanical malfunction. The engine operated normally during a postaccident engine test run. The pilot reported that he performed his emergency descent at 90 KIAS, and did not complete the emergency check list procedures. According to the aircraft manufacturer, the best glide speed was 65 KIAS.
Probable cause
loss of engine power for undetermined reason(s). Darkness and the pilot's improper emergency procedures were related factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD96LA053
- Event ID
- 20001208X05415
- Case number
- IAD96LA053
- 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 1996-03-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 19bf67ff80159147c52d8715523a4e3e3822d356dd3b2c576ad32fba68450908; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:42:45.420Z.