NYC96LA117 · Cessna 177B
Cessna 177B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Beverly Regional Airport (BVY) to Chatham Municipal Airport (CQX)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA117
- 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 177B
- 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
- N19708
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Beverly Regional Airport (BVY), Beverly, MATo Chatham Municipal Airport (CQX), MA
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
- Lubricating system, oil pressure pump › Failure, total
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, compliance with ad, not performed
- Owner/pilot mechanic › Maintenance, compliance with ad, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chatham, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot/owner was 4 miles from the destination airport when the engine lost power. This was followed by white smoke, oil, and flames from under the engine cowling, and a complete loss of engine power. A forced landing was then accomplished to a pond. Examination of the engine revealed the engine oil pump had failed, and the number two and four cylinder connecting rods were separated from the crankshaft. An FAA Airworthiness Directive, AD 81-18-04, was issued in 1981, which required the replacement of the oil pump sintered iron impellers within 25 hours of service after the effective date of the AD. A review of the airplane maintenance records revealed that the AD had not been complied with, but was 'signed off' as not applicable until the 2,000 hour engine overhaul. The pilot/owner was a certified airframe and power plant mechanic and had performed four of the airplane's last six annual inspections. The last two annual inspections had been completed by another mechanic. The engine had accumulated over 1,500 hours since AD 81-18-04 was issued.
Probable cause
failure of the oil pump, which resulted in oil starvation and subsequent failure of the number two and four cylinder connecting rods. Also causal was inadequate maintenance by noncompliance with the airworthiness directive that required replacement of the oil pump.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA117
- Event ID
- 20001208X05862
- Case number
- NYC96LA117
- 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: e5e83152b6e646cd23735bdb93298b51edf07c5cd905c99545490e2179e170d7; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:48:14.172Z.