SEA97LA186 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Bellingham International Airport (BLI) to Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA186
- 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 172M
- 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
- N73158
- Operator
- Sven Lincke
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bellingham International Airport (BLI), Bellingham, WATo Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WA
- 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)
- 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, valve, exhaust › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while in cruise flight, the engine rpm dropped and the airplane began to shake. The pilot checked the gauges, the throttle and mixture, the magnetos, fuel valve position, and found nothing wrong. The pilot stated that he notified air traffic of the loss of engine power, and diverted to a nearby airpark. The pilot entered the pattern and set-up for a short field landing, however, due to a tailwind, sloping terrain, and excess airspeed, the airplane floated a considerable distance down the runway. The pilot stated that when the airplane touched down, he realized that he did not have enough runway left to stop, and opted to turn off the runway onto a steep uphill taxiway. During the roll up this taxiway, the right wing struck trees and spun the airplane around 180 degrees. During the postcrash inspection of the engine, the exhaust valve for the number three cylinder was found broken.
Probable cause
A failed exhaust valve. Factors were tailwind and excessive airspeed during the ensuing forced landing. .
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA186
- Event ID
- 20001208X08746
- Case number
- SEA97LA186
- 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: 50d5d7895f87259650620dffb9e2b65023386411caae349adf96f024e8e24db1; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:53:02.874Z.