CHI84LA295 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI84LA295
- 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 172M
- 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
- N20218
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 (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 › Carburetor heat, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER TAKEOFF, THE PLT CLIMBED TO 8500 FT MSL TO PRACTICE MANEUVERS. HE THEN MADE A DESCENT TO 4500 FT & BEGAN HEADING BACK TO THE ARPT, THEN CONTINUED DESCENDING TO 1800 FT & ENTERED THE TCA. THE ENG LOST POWER APRX 7 MILES FROM THE AIRPORT. LATER, DURING AN INTERVIEW, THE PLT STATED THAT HE ONLY MOMENTARILY USED THE CARBURETOR HEAT WHEN HE BEGAN HIS DESCENT FROM 8000 TO 1800 FT MSL. DURING AN EMERGENCY LANDING, THE PLT LANDED IN AN AREA WITH WEEDS ABOUT 1 FT TALL. HE WAS NOT AWARE OF A DITCH THAT CROSSED THE AREA UNTIL AFTER TOUCHDOWN. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT HIT THE FAR SIDE OF THE DITCH & NOSED OVER. THE TEMP & DEW POINT WERE 90 & 60 DEG. ACCORDING TO ICING PROBABILITY CHARTS, VISIBLE ICING WAS POSSIBLE IN FLOAT TYPE CARBURETORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI84LA295
- Event ID
- 20001214X40243
- Case number
- CHI84LA295
- 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: 9bb042f6d56a4684daf5ec15f2f352a4ad9d649fc3e5f5192fc6025b114e260b; retrieved 2026-09-23T20:07:48.905Z.