BFO92LA142 · Cessna 172N
International Aviation Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From AIY · Atlantic City, NJ to Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92LA142
- 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
- N7396E
- Operator
- International Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AIY · Atlantic City, NJTo Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), Frederick, MD
- 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
- 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 › Carburetor heat, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER RECEIVING A WEATHER BRIEFING AND FUELING THE AIRPLANE, THE PILOT DEPARTED ON A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT. THE PILOT STATED THAT ABOUT AN HOUR INTO THE FLIGHT, THE ENGINE 'GRADUALLY LOST RPM' AND HE APPLIED CARBURETOR HEAT 'A LITTLE BIT'. ALL POWER WAS LOST AND HE EXECUTED A FORCED LANDING. THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN IN A FIELD AND BOUNCED. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE 'PUSHED DOWN ON THE YOKE' TO GET IT BACK ON THE GROUND AND THE AIRPLANE THEN NOSED OVER. AN EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE AND ENGINE DID NOT DISCLOSE ANY MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS. ACCORDING TO THE DOT/FAA/CT82/44 PUBLICATION: LIGHT AIRCRAFT PISTON ENGINE CARBURETOR ICE DETECTOR/WARNING DEVICE SENSITIVITY/EFFECTIVENESS, THE PREVAILING TEMPERATURE AND DEWPOINT AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT PRODUCED A PROBABILITY OF CARBURETOR ICING AT GLIDE AND CRUISE POWER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER USE OF CARBURETOR HEAT CONTROL RESULTING IN A TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT INCLUDE THE EXISTENCE OF WEATHER CONDITIONS CONDUCIVE TO CARBURETOR ICING AND THE ROUGH TERRAIN ON WHICH THE AIRCRAFT WAS LANDED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92LA142
- Event ID
- 20001211X15625
- Case number
- BFO92LA142
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-09-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5d1ea672e9b5e0963f33615dd5820a085393477238b41f96a0fc9b93d000c7c3; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:37:38.974Z.