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NYC91LA059 · Cessna 172P

15 Jan 1991 · Charleston, WV, United States

Executive Air Terminal Cessna 172P · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route

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Event

NTSB case
NYC91LA059
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 172P

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
N62960
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo 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 · descent
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 (mechanical failure)
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

  • Accessory drive assembly, drive gear › Sheared
  • Other maintenance personnel › Facility, inadequate manuals/directives
  • Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, overhaul, improper

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE PILOT WAS ON A LOCAL FAMILIARIZATION FLIGHT WHEN HE EXPERIENCED A TOTAL LOSS OF POWER. HE MADE A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD SOFTENED BY RECENT RAIN. UPON TOUCHDOWN, THE NOSE WHEEL DUG IN AND THE AIRPLANE FLIPPED OVER. POST CRASH EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THE DOWEL PIN FOR THE ACCESSORY DRIVE GEAR HAD SHEARED. ACCORDING TO THE ENGINE OVERHAUL RECORDS THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE THAT LYCOMING SB 475, OR SI 1179D, ITS PREDECESSOR HAD BEEN COMPLIED WITH. EXAMINATION OF THE FORMS USED IN THE ENGINE OVERHAUL SHOP FAILED TO FIND A LISTING OF SB 475 OR SI 1179D AS AN ITEM TO BE CHECKED.

Probable cause

TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER IN CRUISE FLIGHT DUE TO FAILURE OF THE ACCESSORY DRIVE GEAR DOWEL PIN RESULTING IN A FORCED LANDING OVER UNSUITABLE TERRAIN AND SUBSEQUENT NOSE OVER ON LANDING ROLL. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE IMPROPER PROCEDURE USED DURING ENGINE OVERHAUL.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC91LA059
Event ID
20001212X16371
Case number
NYC91LA059
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: 149159c15c362f16de8c7d0202f38cc898234eb16cfd8898b55b631b641fa917; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:54:59.780Z.