SEA94LA011 · Cessna 172M
Pavco Flight Center Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94LA011
- 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 172M
- 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
- N9932Q
- Operator
- Pavco Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW), Tacoma, WATo 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
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A PRE-RENT CHECKOUT FLIGHT, THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR PULLED THE THROTTLE TO IDLE TO SIMULATE A LOSS OF POWER. CARB HEAT WAS APPLIED DURING THE DESCENT, AND ONCE DURING THE MANEUVER THE INSTRUCTOR 'CLEARED THE THROTTLE.' WHEN POWER WAS APPLIED FOR A GO-AROUND NEAR THE END OF THE SIMULATED MANEUVER, AN ALMOST COMPLETE LOSS OF POWER WAS EXPERIENCED. A FORCED LANDING WAS THEN ATTEMPTED IN A NEARBY FIELD, AND THE AIRCRAFT FLIPPED OVER AFTER THE NOSE GEAR BROKE OFF IN THE SOFT TERRAIN. ACCORDING TO THE CARBURETOR ICING PROBABILITY CHART (DOT/FAA/CT-82/44) THE AIRCRAFT WAS BEING OPERATED IN AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE SERIOUS ICING MAY BE EXPECTED TO OCCUR AT GLIDE POWER. THE ONE APPLICATION OF POWER DURING THE DESCENT WAS NOT SUFFICIENT TO ENSURE ICE DID NOT FORM IN THE CABURETOR THROAT.
Probable cause
THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW PROCEDURES. FACTORS INCLUDE CARBURETOR ICING CONDITIONS AND SOFT TERRAIN IN THE LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94LA011
- Event ID
- 20001211X13662
- Case number
- SEA94LA011
- 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: 1dff549954cac58e5d47c2d2379318608c92a3786ca12a1c3a6483434437eee7; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:32:51.878Z.