BFO93LA126 · Cessna 172D
Cessna 172D · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From MSM Airport (PS50) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93LA126
- 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 172D
- 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
- N2494U
- Operator
- Wayne R. Adams · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From MSM Airport (PS50), KINGSLEY, PATo 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
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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 contamination; Tree(s)
- 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 › Water
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE, THE ENGINE LOST PARTIAL POWER. THE PILOT STATED HE APPLIED CARBURETOR HEAT, AND SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE ENGINE LOST ALL POWER. DURING AN EMERGENCY LANDING ON MOUNTAINOUS WOODED TERRAIN, THE AIRPLANE 'CLIPPED' TREES AND IMPACTED THE GROUND, THEN IT SLID ABOUT 30 FT AND CAME TO REST INVERTED. AN EXAM OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED NO AIRFRAME ANOMALIES. THE ENGINE WAS INSPECTED AND WATER WAS FOUND IN THE GASCOLATOR, CARBURETOR FLOAT BOWL AND ACCELERATOR PUMP HOUSING; SOURCE OF THE WATER CONTAMINATION WAS NOT DETERMINED. MICE WERE FOUND IN THE CARBURETOR AIR BOX AND VENTURI AREA. ONE MOUSE WAS LODGED IN THE THROTTLE VALVE. RECEIPTS SHOWED THE AIRPLANE RECEIVED ABOUT 17 GALLONS OF FUEL ON THE DAY BEFORE THE ACCIDENT. SINCE THEN, THE AIRPLANE HAD FLOWN ABOUT 1 HR. THE PILOT SAID THAT BEFORE EACH FLIGHT, HE DRAINED EACH FUEL DRAIN. HE SAID WATER WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL SAMPLES, BUT HE CONTINUED TO DRAIN THE FUEL UNTIL NO MORE WATER WAS DETECTED.
Probable cause
LOSS OF ENGINE ENGINE POWER DUE TO WATER CONTAMINATION OF THE FUEL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE MICE, WHICH PARTIALLY BLOCKED FUEL AND AIR FLOW TO THE CARBURETOR, AND THE LACK OF SUITABLE TERRAIN IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93LA126
- Event ID
- 20001211X12806
- Case number
- BFO93LA126
- 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: 4a44327d39c94c0539e08212638a461fa03d3935418819592c267ccb970a7fda; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:16:20.751Z.