SEA98LA046 · Cessna 152
Eagle Flight Center Cessna 152 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA046
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N757CZ
- Operator
- Eagle Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO), Hillsboro, ORTo not recorded
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Pilot in command › Engine shutdown, not performed
- Throttle/power lever, cable › Disconnected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 51-hour student pilot entered the traffic pattern, and on downwind discovered engine RPM fixed at 2,000. He continued his approach to the 5,419 foot long runway, but made no attempt to shut the engine down once the runway was assured. Unable to stop the aircraft after touchdown, he then attempted a go-around maneuver and then a re-landing in a soft field where, once again, he made no attempt to shut the engine down once the landing field was assured. During the aircraft's movement across the soft field, the nose-gear assembly collapsed in overload and the aircraft nosed over. Post-crash examination revealed that the throttle cable had become disconnected at the throttle-to-carburetor adapter plate on the carburetor throttle arm. The bearing end of the throttle rod, as well as one of its retaining nuts, was absent, as was the bolt which passes through both the rod-end bearing, and the carburetor adapter plate. All three washers on this bolt, as well as its associated nut and cotter key, were also absent. Examination of the aircraft's airframe log revealed that the owner, a certificated mechanic, had removed and replaced the throttle cable 5.4 hours previous to the disconnect.
Probable cause
Disconnection of the throttle cable at the throttle-to-carburetor adapter plate and the failure of the student pilot to shut the aircraft's engine down once a safe landing was assured. Factors contributing to the accident were the soft terrain and overloading of the nose landing gear assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA046
- Event ID
- 20001211X09780
- Case number
- SEA98LA046
- 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: b4ee9efa89302f03523d7b5ea173a4b326eff981930884b651d3c2f0d207b48f; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:53:54.153Z.