IAD02LA034 · Cessna 170
Cessna 170 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Shannon Airport (EZF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD02LA034
- 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 170
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N3832V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shannon Airport (EZF), Fredericksburg, VATo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, annual inspection, inadequate
- Unknown › Maintenance, modification, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot flew the airplane for 1 hour and 40 minutes, with no deficiencies noted. The pilot entered the airport traffic pattern, reduced power, and applied carburetor heat. When he turned onto the final approach course, he reduced the throttle to idle and the engine stopped producing power. The pilot was unable to glide to the runway, and performed a forced landing to a railroad bed. Examination of the airplane revealed that actuation of the carburetor heat control would not move the control arm on the air control box. Further examination revealed a kink in the control cable, about an inch above an unauthorized repair/modification to the control arm-cable connection. According to the owner, no repairs or modifications were made to the air control box actuating system since he purchased the airplane, nor was the modification noted or corrected during a recent annual inspection. Atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to carburetor icing at glide or cruise power settings.
Probable cause
The unauthorized modification of the air control box by unknown persons, and the failure of subsequent mechanics to note and correct the deficiency. Factors included the carburetor icing conditions and the unsuitable terrain mandated by the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD02LA034
- Event ID
- 20020305X00303
- Case number
- IAD02LA034
- 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, coordinates. 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: 97946f785a5be981b9729c6427af33e3272e875b97ae08d16792a09f570b3ec4; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:41:39.685Z.