MIA00LA215 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From May River Airstrip (MRH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA215
- 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 172L
- 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
- N3875Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From May River Airstrip (MRH)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
- 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
- Total 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
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was a maintenance test flight following engine overhaul due to a propeller strike on March 10, 2000. No discrepancies were noted by the pilot during the engine run-up or after applying full power to takeoff. While climbing about 100 feet above ground level (agl), the engine experienced a loss of power then quit. The pilot landed the airplane with only 180 feet remaining on the departure runway and applied heavy brakes. The airplane departed the end of the runway, rolled onto wet grass, and unable to stop the airplane, collided with a chain link fence. The engine was disassembled with FAA approval by the facility that overhauled it without government oversight, before NTSB notification. The No. 4 cylinder connecting rod bolts were fractured, and the connecting rod cap was straight. Due to the lack of government oversight during the examination of the failed engine, no components of the engine were examined or retained. An entry in the maintenance records dated July 5, 2000, indicates that the engine was overhauled '...per Lycoming Overhaul Manual (60294-7).' The entry also indicates that the engine was test run, and 'All pressures and temps [sic] within manufacturer specifications....'
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to failure of the No. 4 cylinder connecting rod during the first flight following engine overhaul for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was unsuitable terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA215
- Event ID
- 20001212X21545
- Case number
- MIA00LA215
- 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: 751445ca4d80b28c098929558a331d5c216c142877076c1b20fb08667e44fbdc; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:42:25.186Z.