LAX86LA095 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From 2Q3 · Woodland, CA to 045 · Vacaville, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86LA095
- 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
- N6421E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2Q3 · Woodland, CATo 045 · Vacaville, 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 (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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, not used
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE EXPERIENCED A LOSS OF POWER SHORTLY AFTER LEVELING OFF AT ABOUT 1,000 MSL. THE POWER LOSS WAS SMOOTH AND RAPID. DURING THE SUBSEQUENT FORCED LANDING ROLL-OUT, THE ACFT NOSED OVER ONTO ITS BACK. POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION DISCLOSED NO EVIDENCE OF ANY ENGINE COMPONENT MALFUNCTION AND/OR FAILURE. THE TEMPERATURE WAS ABOUT 57 DEG F AND THE DEW POINT WAS ABOUT 51 DEG F. ACCORDING TO THE CARB ICING CURVE, THE ACFT WOULD HAVE ENCOUNTERED SERIOUS CARB ICING IN CRUISE OR CLIMB POWER SETTINGS. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE DID NOT USE CARB HEAT PRIOR TO LOSS OF POWER OR DURING RESTART ATTEMPTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86LA095
- Event ID
- 20010110X00207
- Case number
- LAX86LA095
- 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: b8d0951951c0f82d14ca58573fb9e7cf22cdf245f2c3faa6aa4981e470152a67; retrieved 2026-09-23T15:06:38.929Z.