FTW99LA168 · Cessna T188C
Cessna T188C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From 3E1 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA168
- 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 T188C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N9659J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3E1To 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 (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, cylinder › Low compression
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The agricultural airplane impacted terrain during a forced landing following a partial loss of engine power after takeoff. The airplane departed from the runway, reached an altitude of approximately 75 feet agl, and then began to 'settle to the ground.' The pilot performed an emergency chemical dump; however, the airplane continued to descend. During the ensuing forced landing in a wheat field, the left main landing gear failed, and the airplane groundlooped. Subsequently, the airplane slid 60 feet before coming to a stop upright. Examination of the engine revealed that the number 5 cylinder produced a compression of 34/80 (manufacturer's specifications state that the acceptable compression is 60/80). No other discrepancies with the engine were noted.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power as a result of the low compression in the number 5 cylinder. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA168
- Event ID
- 20001212X19002
- Case number
- FTW99LA168
- 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: a23c35c4d5179e29643b75f29db6ae54603efd984b9a9e461b43985fca02a96d; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:53:56.528Z.