ATL83LA309 · Cessna 172N
Birmingham Flying Club Cessna 172N · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83LA309
- 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 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
- N738NV
- Operator
- Birmingham Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM), Birmingham, ALTo 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Ignition system, spark plug › Other
- Pilot in command › Powerplant controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUCTOR (CFI) REPORTED THE ENG BEGAN MISSING WHEN POWER WAS APPLIED AFTER PRACTICING STALLS. A DECISION WAS MADE TO RETURN TO THE ARPT. CARBURETOR HEAT WAS APPLIED & THE THROTTLE WAS RETARDED TO DESCEND. THE MIXTURE WAS IN FULL RICH.AFTER A COUPLE OF MINUTES, THE ENG BEGAN RUNNING ROUGH & LOSING POWER. CARBURETOR HEAT & THE THROTTLE WERE ADJUSTED IN AN UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO RESTORE POWER. A DECISION WAS MADE TO LAND ON AN UNOPENED HIGHWAY. DURING FINAL APCH, THE ACFT STRUCK A POWER LINE. SUBSEQUENTLY, IT IMPACTED THE GROUND NOSE 1ST. APRX 10 GAL OF FUEL WAS REMAINING. ALL BUT 1 SPARK PLUG WAS FOUND OILY & SOOTY. THE ENG WAS STARTED & RAN SMOOTHLY TO 1200 RPM. IT HAD 50 HRS OF OPERATION SINCE OVERHAUL. THE PLT HANDBOOK STATED CRUISE SHOULD BE AT 65 TO 75% POWER FOR 50 HRS OR UNTIL OIL CONSUMPTION HAS BEEN STOPPED. A CHAMPION SPARK PLUG PUBLICATION STATED WET, OILY PLUGS MAY BE CAUSED BY AN ENG STILL IN A BREAK-IN PERIOD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83LA309
- Event ID
- 20001214X43994
- Case number
- ATL83LA309
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-08-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e26367d14eaa1c89d9042b3f7b69444843152f6b2fa9e0b0a3090f9b23ca71d4; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:38:25.441Z.