ATL89LA091 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Campbell County Airport - Colonel Tommy C Stiner Airfield (JAU) to Richard B Russell Airport (RMG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89LA091
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N8032A
- Operator
- Shelly R. Decker · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Campbell County Airport - Colonel Tommy C Stiner Airfield (JAU), Jacksboro, TNTo Richard B Russell Airport (RMG), Rome, GA
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD HE OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING BEFORE HIS INITIAL FLT. EN ROUTE, HE LANDED TO CHECK THE WX AGAIN. AFTER THE 2ND TAKEOFF, WX WAS OBTAINED IN FLT FROM THE ATIS AT KNOXVILLE, TN. THE ATIS RPTD 900 FEET OVC, 8 MI VIS, & SEVERE ICINGIN THE LOCAL AREA. EARLIER IN THE FLT, THE PLT HAD USED CARB HEAT DUE TO THE WX CONDS. WITH THE CARB HEAT APPLIED, THE ACFT ENTERED A SNOW SHOWER & LOSS OF RPM ENSUED. ALSO, AIRFRAME ICING WAS ENCOUNTERED. THE PLT ELECTED TO DIVERT TO A NEARBY ARPT; HOWEVER, THE RPM COULD NOT BE MAINTAINED & A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING WAS MADE IN A FIELD. DRG THE LANDING, THE ACFT ENCOUNTERED SOFT TERRAIN & NOSED OVER.
Probable cause
FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER BY THE PILOT AND HIS DELAY IN DIVERTING TO AN ALTERNATE AIRPORT WHICH LED TO A PARTIAL POWER LOSS AND AN EMERGENCY LANDING. THE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND SOFT TERRAIN WERE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89LA091
- Event ID
- 20001213X27693
- Case number
- ATL89LA091
- 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: 4f7b3ef4920a1f0ba2031848c903b5ad10a5cdeafddb86de82d3987021849c69; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:52:31.841Z.