ATL96LA097 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Butler Municipal Airport (6A1) to Francisco Carle Airport (JAU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96LA097
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N72438
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Butler Municipal Airport (6A1), Butler, GATo Francisco Carle Airport (JAU)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he crossed over the airport at about 200 to 400 feet in preparation for landing. The engine started to sputter and lose power. The pilot verified the fuel selector was positioned to the right fuel tank since the left fuel tank was empty. (Before descending, he noted that the fuel gauge indicated that the right tank was 1/4 to 1/2 full.) The pilot also checked to ensure the carburetor heat was in, and that the magnetos were on both. The engine, however, continued to sputter. The pilot selected an open field for an emergency landing area, but was unable to reach the open field. The airplane collided with trees on final approach and crashed. The pilot reported that after the accident, 'The fire department put a bucket under the wing to catch leaking fuel and recovered 2-2.5 gallons, but fuel had been leaking for 40-60 minutes before they did this.' The pilot reported that he had 'topped off' the tanks before flight and had only flown about 2 hours and 45 minutes when the engine lost power. He also reported that the airplane should have flown at least 3.5 hours after being fully serviced. The engine assembly was removed and placed in an engine test stand. The engine started and developed power.
Probable cause
loss of engine power for undetermined reason(s), which resutled in a forced landing and subsequent in-flight collision with trees and the terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96LA097
- Event ID
- 20001208X05907
- Case number
- ATL96LA097
- 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: cd5bc65de6469c67bcc70a9d7a19e1f11d14b9f5f07f98ccf51d671424c6e2f3; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:04:57.988Z.