DEN83LA151 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83LA151
- 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 172
- 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
- N75958
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (COS), Colorado Springs, COTo 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Ellicott, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH A FENCE DURING A FORCED LANDING AFTER THE ENGINE QUIT. THE PLT WAS DESCENDING FROM AIRWORK AT 10800 FT MSL TO RETURN TO THE ARPT. THE ENGINE WAS REDUCED TO IDLE AND THE CARBURETOR HEAT WAS ON BUT THE ENGINE WOULD NOT RESPOND WHEN THE THROTTLE WAS ADVANCED. EMERGENCY PROCEDURES WERE INTITATED AND A LANDING SITE CHOSEN. THE DIRT ROADCHOSEN HAD A CROSSWIND SO AN ALTERNATE FIELD WAS CHOSEN. THE GRASS FIELD GAVE POOR DECELERATION AND AFTER 455 FT OF ROLLA FENCE WAS ENCOUNTERED. IN THE RECOMMENDATION SECTION OF THE PILOT'S ACCIDENT REPORT HE WROTE 'BE CAUTIOUS EVEN WITH NOVISIBLE MOISTURE WHEN IT WAS VISIBLE EARLIER.' ALL POST ACCIDENT TESTS ON THE ENGINE WERE NORMAL. THE FUEL SYSTEM CONTAINED NO WATER IN THE TANKS OR LINES. THE TEMPERATURE ON THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT WAS 55 DEGREES F AND THE DEWPOINT WAS 32 DEGREES F.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83LA151
- Event ID
- 20001214X43311
- Case number
- DEN83LA151
- 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: ba86c09f801eb4d12aa44842bfeb0f40f4f437ec6fc5eaa8969f36bc48086cb0; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:58:56.864Z.