Village Aviation Cessna 172M accident
Cessna 172M · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Bethel Airport (BET) to Akiachak Seaplane Base (KKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC92FA002
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N20024
- Operator
- Village Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AKTo Akiachak Seaplane Base (KKI), Akiachak, AK
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 (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
- Engine assembly, timing gear › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE FLIGHT THE PILOT HEARD A LOUD POP IN THE ENGINE COMPARTMENT AND THE ENGINE STOPPED PRODUCING POWER. DURING THE SUBSEQUENT FORCED LANDING ON THE TUNDRA, THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER AND RECEIVED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT THE CRANKSHAFT TIMING GEAR, PART NUMBER LW-15269, WAS EXTREMELY WORN AND ALL BUT NINE OF THE GEAR TEETH WERE MISSING. ACCORDING TO TEXTRON LYCOMING, THE GEAR WAS THE ORIGINAL MANUFACTURED GEAR.
Probable cause
A POWER LOSS OVER UNSUITABLE TERRAIN WHICH RESULTED IN A NOSE OVER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC92FA002
- Event ID
- 20001212X18219
- Case number
- ANC92FA002
- 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: 6f71bd866671bfb200cfc90be4cf03c524b6c7cac48253e48a3631f792cfcdd5; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:51:57.764Z.