NYC90FA077 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Wilkes Barre Wyoming Valley Airport (WBW) to Bradford County Airport (N27)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90FA077
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N29578
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilkes Barre Wyoming Valley Airport (WBW), Forty Fort, PATo Bradford County Airport (N27), Towanda, PA
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE PLT & PLT RATED PASSENGER WERE DEPARTING THE ARPT, THE ENG LOST POWER AT ABOUT 300 TO 600 FT AGL. THE ACFT BEGAN TO TURN TO THE RIGHT, THEN IT ENTERED A STEEP DESCENT & CRASHED. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF OF THE ACFT OR ENG WAS FOUND. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT HAD BEEN SERVICED WITH AUTO FUEL. A CHECK OF THE FUEL ABOUT 24 HRS AFTER THE ACDNT REVEALED A REID VAPOR PRESSURE (RVP) OF 11.8. ACCORDING TO THE SUPPLIER, THE AUTO FUEL CONSISTED OF 17.5% WINTER GRADE FUEL & 82.5% SUMMER GRADE FUEL. AVIATION FUEL HAS AN RVP OF 5.5 TO 7 & IS LESS SUSCEPTIBLE TO VAPOR LOCK. ACCORDING TO THE ACFT LOG, THE ACFT HAD BEEN MODIFIED IAW STC SA2010CE & SE1931CE FOR USE OF AUTO FUEL, BUT AN ID CLAMP & PLACARDS WERE NOT INSTALLED, AS REQUIRED. THE CARB FLOAT WAS MADE OF A COMPOSITE MATERIAL. THE TEMP & DEW POINT WERE 80 & 50 DEG, RESPECTIVELY. ACCORDING TO CARB ICING CHARTS, SERIOUS CARB ICING COULD HAVE OCCURRED AT GLIDE POWER & VISIBLE ICING WAS POSSIBLE AT RATED POWER.
Probable cause
LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR AN UNKNOWN REASON, AND FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED, WHILE MANEUVERING, WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90FA077
- Event ID
- 20001212X22804
- Case number
- NYC90FA077
- 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: 0176da10d4c1102ba039d5950ae1f14c65e909f7ab6080c88582fcc17cdf6962; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:53:38.244Z.