CHI98LA245 · Cessna 188B
Cessna 188B · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Atlanta, NE (private airstrip) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA245
- 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 188B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N9247R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Atlanta, NE (private airstrip)To 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing a sprayer calibration test when the engine suffered a substantial loss of power. The pilot was operating at approximately 50 feet above ground level (agl) at the time of the power loss. The pilot stated that he was at too low an altitude to trouble shoot the power loss and maneuver the aircraft into an open field. Upon touch down the left main gear dug into the soft mud, collapsed the left main gear, which resulted in the left wing impacting the terrain. The pilot stated that the aircraft rotated about the left wing, approximately 80-degrees, and then came to a stop. Post accident investigation revealed that the engine would not sustain power at idle or any power setting with the fuel boost pump in the 'Off ' position. Investigation of the fuel system revealed that the 'B' nut on the fuel line from the firewall to the back of the engine was loose. After the nut had been tightened the engine performed, without hesitation, at all power settings with the fuel pump in the 'Off' position. No other aircraft or engine anomalies were found.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to a loose 'B' nut on the fuel line fitting. Contributing to the accident was the inadequate maintain and the soft terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA245
- Event ID
- 20001211X10498
- Case number
- CHI98LA245
- 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: 002b5076f3c984f22374fb605d8c52ff6ca730fc4c52632fc5736655003dfc0e; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:31:25.358Z.