CHI01LA219 · Cessna 172C
Cessna 172C · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Lincoln Airport (LNK) to Central Nebraska Regional Airport (GRI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA219
- 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 172C
- 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
- N1860Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lincoln Airport (LNK), Lincoln, NETo Central Nebraska Regional Airport (GRI), Grand Island, NE
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had a loss of engine power and sustained substantial damaged during a forced landing to a cornfield. The student pilot initiated a descent from 6,500 feet msl about 10 miles from the destination airport. He reported he contacted the tower and, "Soon thereafter the engine sputtered and stopped." The student pilot attempted an engine air start but was unsuccessful. He reported he was unable to land at the airport. At 400 feet agl, he saw power lines running north and south so he turned north to avoid the power lines and landed cross row in a cornfield. During the landing roll, the airplane started to nose over and then "cart wheeled" and came to rest on its main landing gear. There were no preexisting anomalies to the airframe or engine. The engine was test run and it started without hesitation. The 1056 observed weather at GRI was: wind 130 degrees at 6 knots, sky clear, visibility 10 miles, temperature 29 degrees C, dew point 20 degrees C, altimeter 29.87. According to the Transport Canada "Carburetor Icing Graph", the existing weather conditions at GRI were in the region of "Serious icing - descent power." The FAA issued Advisory Circular (AC) 20-113, "Pilot Precautions and Procedures To Be Taken In Preventing Aircraft Reciprocating Engine Induction System and Fuel System Icing Problems." The AC stated, "...the pilot should regularly use heat under conditions known to be conducive to atmospheric icing..." in order to prevent accidents due to induction system icing. One of the procedures to reduce the likelihood of induction system icing stated, "Heat should be applied for a short time to warm the induction system before beginning a prolonged descent with the engine throttled and left on during the descent. Power lever advancement should be performed periodically during descent to assure that power recovery can be achieved. The pilot should be prepared to turn heat off after power is regained to resume level flight or initiate a go-around from an abandoned approach." The student pilot had a total of 41 hours of flight time.
Probable cause
The procedures for using carburetor heat not followed by the student pilot and the unsuitable terrain encountered during the forced landing. Additional factors included the carburetor icing conditions, the carburetor icing, the student pilot's lack of experience, and the crop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA219
- Event ID
- 20010719X01456
- Case number
- CHI01LA219
- 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: 1d9ced20715500ef9af297a15d180fd79067d82434adccd961d6f48e556618e2; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:45:42.789Z.