ATL96FA119 · Cessna 172H
Cessna 172H · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Clearwater Air Park (CLW) to Airport Manatee Airport (48X)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96FA119
- 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
- 1 · 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 172H
- 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
- N8016L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Clearwater Air Park (CLW), Clearwater, FLTo Airport Manatee Airport (48X), Palmetto, FL
- 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
- Utility pole
- 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 · Estimated position: the centre of St. Petersburg, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot/owner was scheduled to deliver his airplane to a mechanic for an annual inspection. When the airplane did not arrive, the mechanic made inquiries, and discovered that the airplane had crashed between the departure airport and the destination. Witnesses to the accident reported that the engine was not operating, and that it appeared the airplane was attempting to land on a fishing pier. The airplane hit a light pole, the fishing pier guardrail, and tumbled into the bay. Following the airplane's removal from the bay, there was evidence of fuel in the airplane at impact. Although the carburetor bowl exhibited evidence of long term corrosion, the engine was operated after removing the sea water trapped in it. The reason for the reported engine malfunction could not be determined.
Probable cause
An engine malfunction for undetermined reasons. A factor was the pilot's selection of an unsuitable landing site.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96FA119
- Event ID
- 20001208X06413
- Case number
- ATL96FA119
- 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: 9b417fd14e0af8515d6bb009d13f610cd14a566ce2bc1717b8df26cd8c20bcb8; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:13:25.160Z.