ATL99LA094 · Cessna 172E
Cessna 172E · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Millington-Memphis Airport (NQA) to Sikeston Memorial Municipal Airport (SIK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99LA094
- 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 172E
- 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
- N5363T
- Operator
- Jonathan J. Brown · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Millington-Memphis Airport (NQA)To Sikeston Memorial Municipal Airport (SIK), Sikeston, MO
- 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 · climb to 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he departed Millington Airport on runway 4 from intersection 'C'. Shortly after takeoff, at an altitude of approximately 400 feet above the ground, the engine experienced a slight decrease in power of not more than 50 RPM. He checked the mixture, fuel, ignition, and carburetor heat controls and found them to be set correctly. At that point, he elected to return to runway 22. During the turn to runway 22, the engine lost power. The pilot established a glide to runway 22, but was unable to make the runway. The airplane subsequently landed 300 feet short of runway 22 in a field and rolled into a ditch, substantially damaging the airplane. According to the FAA, the pilot topped the airplane off with fuel prior to the flight. A fuel sample was taken and no evidence of contamination was found. Examination of the engine revealed no mechanical deficiencies. According to carburetor probability charts, the weather conditions were favorable for formation of carburetor ice.
Probable cause
Loss of engine power due to undetermined reasons. Factors were weather conditions favorable to carburetor ice and the terrain condition at the forced landing site.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99LA094
- Event ID
- 20001212X18698
- Case number
- ATL99LA094
- 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: e964a7a8692b916c9d285f4cd8f8477b0d8750bda3e3bc53515e9fd274847efe; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:32:16.824Z.