DEN00LA091 · Cessna 172XP
Cessna 172XP · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Centennial Airport (APA) to 38U · CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN00LA091
- 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 172XP
- 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
- N758SZ
- Operator
- Dan Bailey
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, COTo 38U · CO
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Terrain condition › None suitable
- Terrain condition › Soft
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a dual instructional flight, the flight instructor gave the student a practice engine out approach by reducing power to 'just above idle.' At the completion of the maneuver, the student added power and the engine failed to respond. The instructor took control and conducted a forced landing to the field the student was using as a target for his maneuver. The terrain was soft and the aircraft nosed over during landing roll. Examination of the aircraft/engine, provided evidence the boost pump was improperly wired giving high boost when either high or low was selected. The switch was found on the low selection as prescribed for the maneuver being conducted. When and who made the wiring change was not determined.
Probable cause
A forced landing on soft unsuitable terrain. Factors were improper wiring of the electric fuel boost pump, which produce high pressure when either on position was selected causing the engine to flood during the practice engine out approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN00LA091
- Event ID
- 20001212X20981
- Case number
- DEN00LA091
- 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: db62c606925d188eb7a8a09b6ef1d21910539ce79ef31f2c1db1849aa5dd53ab; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:53:07.752Z.