ATL85LA188 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From 9A1 · Covington, GA to Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL85LA188
- 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 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
- N6201E
- Operator
- Roy C. Hall · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 9A1 · Covington, GATo Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB), Daytona Beach, FL
- 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)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
- Lubricating system › Leak
- Lubricating system › Other
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ABOUT 20 MIN AFTER TAKEOFF, WHILE CRUISING AT 5000 FT, THE PLT OBSERVED OIL ON THE WINDSHIELD & NOTED A DECREASE IN OIL PRESSURE. HE TURNED BACK TOWARD THE DEPARTURE ARPT & REDUCED THE POWER IN AN ATTEMPT TO PROLONG ENG LIFE. A SHORT TIME LATER, THE ENG BEGAN RUNNING ROUGH, THEN FAILED. THE ACFT WAS OVER AN AREA OF GND FOG & THE PLT COULD NOT SEE THE GND. HE BEGAN GLIDING AT A MIN RATE OF DESCENT & TRIMMED THE ACFT. BEFORE ENTERING THE FOG, THE OCCUPANTS FASTENED THEIRSEAT BELTS & BRACED THEMSELVES FOR IMPACT. SHORTLY AFTER THE ACFT ENTERED THE FOG, IT HIT 6 TREES, THEN CRASHED IN A CLEARING. DURING A POST-CRASH EXAM, THE OIL DIP STICK WAS FOUND BEHIND THE ENG & THERE WAS INDICATIONS THAT OIL HAD ESCAPED FROM THE TOP OF THE ENG. THE #1 CONNECTING ROD HAD FAILED & PUNCTURED THE ENG CASE. A TEARDOWN OF THE ENG REVEALED EVIDENCE THAT THE ENG HAD BEEN OPERATING WITHOUT OIL PRIOR TO THE ROD FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL85LA188
- Event ID
- 20001214X36372
- Case number
- ATL85LA188
- 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: 1fd8e23b191ee54088960d746974295c51928d5d9347df7feaf63db088f62061; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:50:22.547Z.