FTW97LA006 · Cessna 175B
Cessna 175B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From F62 · Idabel, OK to MSA · Mount Pleasant, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA006
- 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 175B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N8171T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From F62 · Idabel, OKTo MSA · Mount Pleasant, TX
- 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
- Total 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
- 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
- Engine assembly › Seized
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during cruise flight at 5,000 feet MSL, he smelled oil burning. As engine RPM decreased, the oil pressure dropped toward zero. Subsequently, there was an 'explosion' and the engine seized. During the ensuing forced landing, the airplane impacted trees, and came to rest on the ground in a left wing down attitude. A 3 inch diameter hole was found in the crankcase above the #3 cylinder attach point and the #3 connecting rod was separated. During engine disassembly, one of the connecting rod cap bolts for the #3 cylinder was found destroyed. One of the nuts for the #3 connecting rod cap was found laying in the piston skirt, separated from its bolt. The exterior of the nut and its threads were undamaged to the naked eye. No loose cotter pins were found within the engine. All other connecting rod cap bolts were found attached and cotter pinned. The end cap of the #2 piston pin was missing. The inner surface of the #2 cylinder barrel exhibited longitudinal scoring in the direction of piston action, corresponding to the diameter of the piston pin. 1 day prior to the accident, oil was changed and metal particles were found on the oil screen.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to the #3 connecting rod separation resulting in engine seizure. Factors were the dark night and the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA006
- Event ID
- 20001208X06872
- Case number
- FTW97LA006
- 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 1996-10-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3d063552d3d4058aeff6256cc6017fafad2b37f32162df86550bd65ea7032632; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:24:54.501Z.