FTW00LA036 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA036
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N413JF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT), Little Rock, ARTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 (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
- Ignition system, spark plug › Fouled
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an instructional flight, the airplane's engine failed to respond when the pilot receiving instruction advanced the throttle from idle to full power. The flight instructor had simulated a loss of engine power by applying full carburetor heat and retarding the throttle to idle, while at 1,700 feet agl. At 700 feet agl, the flight instructor directed the pilot receiving instruction to initiate a recovery. The flight instructor assumed the controls and configured the airplane with full flaps when the engine failed to respond. The airplane touched down in a freshly plowed field. After touching down, the airplane rolled on its main landing gear for approximately 50 feet. As the speed dissipated, the nose landing gear touched down and sank in the soft ground. Subsequently, the airplane nosed over and came to rest in the inverted position. An engine test run was attempted under the supervision of an FAA inspector. The engine failed to start due to excessively fouled spark plugs.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power as a result of excessively fouled spark plugs. A factor was the soft terrain during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA036
- Event ID
- 20001212X20105
- Case number
- FTW00LA036
- 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: 9c0e7b08e33d70b1cbe7538d3b4291b7d822585e2aa89b17eaed1b62923075ae; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:39:09.323Z.