ATL97LA104 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) to Farmington Regional Airport (FAM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA104
- 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 177RG
- 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
- N52120
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS)To Farmington Regional Airport (FAM), Farmington, MO
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
- Lubricating system, oil filler cap › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Powerplant › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he did a preflight inspection and found no discrepancies. During his takeoff climb, the engine started running rough, and subsequently, it stopped running. The pilot initiated an emergency landing into a field, and the airplane encountered rough terrain, which resulted in substantial to the airplane. Visual examination of the airplane revealed that the oil dipstick was loose. Isolated areas of oil wetness were found in the vicinity of the #2 cylinder base and around the right rear accessory section. Oil was also found on the lower right hand windshield, on the nose landing gear doors, and down 50% of the belly of the fuselage.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight by failing to ensure the oil filler cap was secured during his preflight inspection, and loss of engine oil (oil exhaustion), which resulted in subsequent engine failure. A factor relating to the accident was: the lack of suitable terrain for a successful forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA104
- Event ID
- 20001208X08298
- Case number
- ATL97LA104
- 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: 08945d71903583372599e175c88d8def27ce55c6e35db416e2632d2530b35844; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:08:05.055Z.