MIA98LA153 · Cessna 172N
SunQuest Aviation Cessna 172N · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport (F45) to Key West International Airport (EYW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98LA153
- 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 172N
- 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
- N733LW
- Operator
- Sunquest Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport (F45), FLTo Key West International Airport (EYW), Key West, FL
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Dual student › Carburetor heat, not used
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While circling at 600 feet agl, awaiting an IFR clearance, the engine sputtered once and continued to run. After receiving the IFR clearance the dual student added power to climb to the assigned altitude and the engine sputtered and lost power. The flight instructor took control and a forced landing was made in a field. After the accident, uncontaminated fuel was found in the airframe and engine fuel systems. The engine was started and operated to full power with no signs of mechanical failure or malfunction. The carburetor icing system operated normally. Icing probability curves showed the aircraft was operating in conditions conducive to serious carburetor icing at glide power and visible carburetor icing at glide and cruise power.
Probable cause
the dual student's failure to use carburetor heat while circling at a reduced power setting, and the flight instructor's failure to properly supervise the student.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98LA153
- Event ID
- 20001211X10151
- Case number
- MIA98LA153
- 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: 274bec63821687fe9e773a6b783d12fb66a6cd1181283c580d0256a459c8e8e6; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:48:33.907Z.