FTW00LA207 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Palacios Municipal Airport (PSX) to Heathrow Airport (TE17)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA207
- 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 172N
- 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
- N3392E
- Operator
- Lionel C. Moore · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palacios Municipal Airport (PSX), Palacios, TXTo Heathrow Airport (TE17), Robinson, TX
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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, magneto › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to takeoff, an initial check of the magnetos showed the right magneto had a drop of 300-500 rpm. The pilot rechecked the magnetos several times before and after takeoff and both magnetos checked 'normal.' After several minutes at cruise altitude, a drop in engine rpm was noted. A magneto check revealed a 'dead right magneto.' The pilot elected to change course to the closest airport with maintenance facilities. 'Soon thereafter, all power was lost,' and the pilot could not restart the engine. During the forced landing, 'the airplane hit the ground 30-60 feet from the first contact with the trees' and skidded another 25-50 feet before coming to rest on its nose. An engine test run was attempted; the engine would not start. The single-drive dual-magneto was removed from the engine, and a bench test revealed that no spark was being produced from either magneto. An examination of the magnetos revealed that the neoprene cam followers on both sets of points had melted and smeared, which kept the points from opening.
Probable cause
the failure of both magnetos of the dual-magneto single-drive unit. A factor contributing to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA207
- Event ID
- 20001212X21463
- Case number
- FTW00LA207
- 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: 89c0db02e66b2a3721d41e5b47749a44f9dcb9d1d67dcc1dde74579a3df86715; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:09:51.397Z.