CHI96FA348 · Cessna 172F
Cessna 172F · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Waseca Municipal Airport (ACQ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96FA348
- 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 172F
- 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
- N5373R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waseca Municipal Airport (ACQ), Waseca, MNTo not recorded
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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/spin
- 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
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Movement restricted
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Open
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness first heard the airplane make a backfiring sound. The witness then observed the airplane coming out of the north, heading south toward his house at low altitude. When the airplane was over his house, it turned to the southwest. The witness saw the airplane initiate a 'fast' left turn and then go straight down into a corn field. Another witness said the airplane went over their yard at about 500 to 600 feet above the ground and headed south to southwest rocking its wings slightly. The witness saw the airplane initiate a right turn to the west and said that the engine sound changed from banging to a sputter. The witness said the airplane continued its turn to the north and started come back toward them. A third witness said he saw the airplane go straight down into the corn field. He also said that the airplane 'got about half a turn,' toward the east before it hit. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the engine's #2 cylinder exhaust valve was stuck open.
Probable cause
a loss of power due to the engine's #2 cylinder exhaust valve stuck open, and the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96FA348
- Event ID
- 20001208X06689
- Case number
- CHI96FA348
- 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: 8d3114c067b4e900b083c2b101b0e04c8744b8cee2ca98bd21603aa45beb7571; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:11:13.819Z.