CHI90FA252 · Cessna 172N
Aero Center One Cessna 172N · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From 90D to 19D · Mora, MN
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90FA252
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N733CH
- Operator
- Aero Center One
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 90DTo 19D · Mora, MN
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; 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(vso), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER COMPLETING A X-COUNTRY FLT, THE PLT TOOK OFF WITH 2 PSGRS ABOARD TO FLY TO A NEARBY ARPT TO REFUEL. AFTER TAKING OFF FROM RWY 35, THE ENG LOST PWR. THE ACFT CRASHED ABT 1/4 MI NORTH OF THE RWY & TO THE LEFT OF THE RWY CENTERLINE. IMPACT OCCURRED IN A LEFT WING LOW ATTITUDE. THE ACFT CAME TO REST NOSE DOWN WITH THE TAIL BROKEN DOWN & TO THE RIGHT. ONLY ABT 7 0Z OF FUEL WAS FND IN THE ACFT. LATER, THE ENGE WAS SUCCESSFULLY RUN DURING AN OPNL CHECK. THE PLT HAD 3 HRS OF FLT TIME IN THIS MAKE & MODEL OF ACFT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S MISJUDGEMENT OF THE FUEL SUPPLY, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED. A FACTOR WAS THE PILOT'S LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN THE MAKE AND MODEL OF AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90FA252
- Event ID
- 20001212X24212
- Case number
- CHI90FA252
- 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: fbb47cdf3a457c1f937e9be3e3a6355a9448397a27be963e3383f8443bbd4d7c; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:17:03.511Z.