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MIA99LA271 · Cessna 177

23 Sept 1999 · ST PETERSBURG, FL, United States

Bay Air Flying Service Cessna 177 · Accident: loss of engine power en route

From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MIA99LA271
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 177

Aircraft type
Cessna 177
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
N3342T
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG)To 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 · 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

  • Throttle/power lever, cable › Loose part/bolt/nut/clamp/etc

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

NTSB narrative

The pilot stated that while engaged in traffic reporting duties, at 1,000 feet, 6 miles southwest of the Albert Whitted Municipal Airport, the engine started to sputter and there was a loss of engine power. The pilot further stated that she performed the emergency checklist, turned toward Albert Whitted Municipal Airport, and made a radio call. She attempted to regain cruise power, but the engine produced insufficient power to maintain altitude. She ditched the airplane in shallow water in the vicinity of Tierra Verde, where both she and the passenger were rescued. According to an FAA inspector who conducted an examination of the airplane, the throttle control cable clamp, located just aft of the carburetor was loose from the throttle housing, and made a bow upwards without fully manipulating the throttle control arm.

Probable cause

A loose throttle control cable clamp which resulted in a lose of power.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA99LA271
Event ID
20001212X19841
Case number
MIA99LA271
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: acd3b2e6078f51bd080e8cc28f78fc4abd23f61e0123811a9ea4affc38d87f91; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:02:55.848Z.