FTW98LA039 · Cessna 175
Cessna 175 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Homer Municipal Airport (5F4) to Baton Rouge Heliport (LA05)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA039
- 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 175
- 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
- N9437B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Homer Municipal Airport (5F4), Homer, LATo Baton Rouge Heliport (LA05), Breaux Bridge, LA
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, line › Cracked
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight had been airborne for 1 hour 15 minutes when a total loss of engine power occurred. During a forced landing in a field, the airplane hit a drainage ditch, the nose gear collapsed, and subsequently, the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted. The airplane contained 43 gallons of fuel at the time of departure, and the fuel selector remained in the 'BOTH' position during the flight. At the site, fuel was found in the fuel tanks; however, a crack was noted in the fuel line between the fuel strainer (mounted on the firewall) and the engine fuel pump. There was evidence that air entered the fuel system through the cracked line, resulting in fuel starvation to the engine. The reason for the crack in the line was not determined.
Probable cause
a cracked fuel line, which allowed air to enter the line and lead to fuel starvation and loss of engine power. A related factor was: the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA039
- Event ID
- 20001208X09170
- Case number
- FTW98LA039
- 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: 4e117919ee296733b14380569d629c9d5e8ebc97640525f351a06c049b159375; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:13:46.109Z.