MKC89LA177 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Johnson County Executive Airport (OJC) to Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC89LA177
- 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 180
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N24TW
- Operator
- Reynolds, Earl D. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Johnson County Executive Airport (OJC), Olathe, KSTo Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP), Topeka, KS
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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 › Planned approach, poor
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Topeka, KS, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID THAT HE REALIZED HE WAS TOO HIGH ON HIS APPROACH AND EXECUTED A SLIP MANEUVER ON THE BASE TO FINAL LEGS. THEN HE SAID THAT HE FELT HE WAS TOO LOW AND APPLIED ADDITIONAL THROTTLE. HE SAID THAT THERE WAS NO RESPONSE TO THE THROTTLE APPLICATION WHICH RESULTED IN A LANDING IN A CORN FIELD SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION AND ENGINE RUN-UP REVEALED NO MALFUNCTION OF THE ENGINE AND COMPONENTS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POORLY PLANNED APPROACH AND FAILURE TO MAINTAIN A PROPER GLIDEPATH. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS THE FAILURE OF THE ENGINE TO SUPPLY POWER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC89LA177
- Event ID
- 20001213X29210
- Case number
- MKC89LA177
- 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: 7c0f80846e1bd1abc9b620ce517c1423f461d31df4582934437015a2cd6f709f; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:16:42.099Z.