NYC97LA136 · Cessna 172P
Caldwell Flight Academy Cessna 172P · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Essex County Airport (CDW) to Cape May County Airport (WWD)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97LA136
- 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 172P
- 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
- N97011
- Operator
- Caldwell Flight Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Essex County Airport (CDW), Caldwell, NJTo Cape May County Airport (WWD)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, inadequate
- Weather condition › Carburetor icing conditions
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Wildwood, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After a 1 hour cruise flight, the pilot established a straight in approach to the landing runway. The pilot set the flaps to 10 degrees, the carburetor heat on, and noticed he was 'slightly low for landing.' He then increased the throttle, but there was no increase in power. According to the pilot at this point he checked that the primer was in and the mixture was full rich. The pilot added that he realized he was not going to make the runway, so he started to look for an alternate landing area. The airplane then struck a tree, and came to rest in a pond. Fuel was found in the wing tanks, and a post accident run of the engine was satisfactory. A carburetor icing chart revealed the conditions were conducive for moderate icing for cruise power, and serious icing for glide power.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate use of carburetor heat, which resulted in carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97LA136
- Event ID
- 20001208X08483
- Case number
- NYC97LA136
- 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: 72375ede0a462c680c9a69a4a4c98fd56a5ead8a25e0c872ebe65a0ffcc21aa0; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:15:39.801Z.