LAX86LA199 · Cessna 177RG
Puc Flight Service Cessna 177RG · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86LA199
- 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 177RG
- 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
- N34020
- Operator
- Puc Flight Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL), SO. LAKE TAHOE, CATo San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, CA
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, 100-hour inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ENROUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO, CA THE ENGINE BEGAN TO OVERSPEED & THE PROP GOV CONTROL WAS NOT EFFECTIVE IN ARRESTING/CONTROLLING THE OVERSPEED CONDITION. SHORTLY THEREAFTER THE ENGINE OIL PRESSURE DEPLETED TO ZERO. THE PILOT ELECTED TO LAND IN THE ICE HOUSE RESERVOIR. THE PLT & PAX WERE RESCUED BY LOCAL BOATERS. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE DISCLOSED THE GOVERNOR OIL PRESSURE LINE WAS CHAFFING AGAINST THE ENGINE CRANKCASE AND FRACTURED. THE LINE WAS NOT SECURED WITH CLAMPS AS REQUIRED BY THE AVCO LYCOMING MAINTENANCE MANUAL. A 100-HOUR INSPECTION WAS PERFORMED ON THE ACFT THE DAY BEFORE THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86LA199
- Event ID
- 20001213X33334
- Case number
- LAX86LA199
- 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: bcca9fdf9fd63be98b419c6adcb67b78ac1cee0ca70f5de3b2507d439ced43f6; retrieved 2026-09-23T14:45:46.849Z.