IAD01LA056 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Caribou Municipal Airport (CAR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD01LA056
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- N1674E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Caribou Municipal Airport (CAR), Caribou, METo 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 · 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
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Ashland, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
While on a fire patrol flight, the pilot encountered weather and decided to return to the airport. After initiating a turn towards the airport, the engine began to run rough and lose RPM. The pilot checked all pertinent systems and pulled the carburetor heat on, which had a limited effect. While looking for a suitable place to land, the engine power dropped from 2,000 rpm to 400-800 rpm, and the pilot landed on a logging road about 45 nautical miles west of Presque Isle, Maine. Examination of the airplane revealed there were no mechanical deficiencies, and fuel drained from the wing tanks and fuel sump was absent of debris and water. Interpolation of a carburetor icing probability chart revealed that conditions for moderate icing at cruise power and serious icing at glide power existed.
Probable cause
loss of partial engine power due to carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD01LA056
- Event ID
- 20010524X01014
- Case number
- IAD01LA056
- 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: 560941d8ec4bf3887eeb9493e663bba7ea2654ab2f0cc5566b16b6ea3883ad27; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:57:33.309Z.