MIA89LA058 · Cessna 175
Cessna 175 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From Keystone Heights Airport (42J) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA89LA058
- 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 175
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N9373B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Keystone Heights Airport (42J), Keystone Heights, FLTo 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
- Approach
- 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
- Eng assembly, crankshaft counterweights/vib damper › Loose
- Engine assembly, camshaft › Worn
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Failure, total
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
FLT WAS 3 MILES EAST OF ARPT RETURNING TO LAND AT ALT OF APRX 2,000 FT, WHEN THE ENG QUIT. PLT WAS UNABLE TO RESTART & ELECTED TO LAND IN SMALL TREES AS A NEARBY HIGHWAY WAS CONGESTED. ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES & FELL TO THE GROUND. EXAMINATION OF THE ENG REVEALED THE CRANKSHAFT FAILED AT THE REAR CRANKSHAFT CHEEK BETWEEN #1 & #2 CYLINDER CONNECTING RODS. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE FAILED CRANKSHAFT REVEALED LOW & HIGH CYCLE FATIGUE. EVIDENCE INDICATED THAT THIS WAS CAUSED BY VIBRATIONS OF THE CRANKSHAFT DURING CONTACT OF THE THREE DYNAMIC COUNTERWEIGHTS TO THE ADJACENT CAMSHAFT LOBES. COUNTERWEIGHT CONTACT WAS CAUSED BY WORN COUNTERWEIGHT BUSHING. REVIEW OF THE ENG LOGBOOKS REVEALED A MAJOR OVERHAUL WAS PERFORMED IN 1969, APRX 793 HRS PRIOR TO THE FAILURE. THREE TOP OVERHAULS WERE PERFORMED. THE FIRST & SECOND PERFORMED AT ONE YEAR INTERVALS AFTER THE MAJOR. THE THIRD WAS PERFORMED 10 YEARS AFTER THE SECOND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA89LA058
- Event ID
- 20001213X27462
- Case number
- MIA89LA058
- 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: 542a7e34206db188b62e5d14766a5edf434c63f51619f729c24823892f6df7ad; retrieved 2026-09-23T08:06:53.379Z.