FTW02LA128 · Cessna 172RG
Cessna 172RG · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Holloman Air Force Base (HMN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02LA128
- 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 172RG
- 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
- N6288R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Holloman Air Force Base (HMN), Alamogordo, NMTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the CFI and the private pilot no anomalies were noted during the pre-takeoff engine run-up. The air traffic control tower cleared the flight to takeoff from runway 07, at the runway 16 intersection. The private pilot initiated the takeoff roll with the flaps retracted and full fuel. According to a weather observation facility at the air base, at the time of the accident, the wind was from 340 degrees at 11 knots. The manifold pressure, rpm, and engine gauges were all within the set limits during the takeoff roll, and the airplane became airborne. However, once airborne the airplane did not gain airspeed. The pilots maneuvered the airplane into the wind and elected not to retract the landing gear. The CFI stated that he "sensed a lack of adequate power development." The private pilot ensured that the throttle was full forward, reduced the airplane's pitch attitude, and the "airspeed came back weakly;" however, when he increased the pitch attitude, the airspeed "immediately started falling away." The CFI tried a few different mixture settings; however, none increased the power output. The airplane was descending when the private pilot relinquished control of the airplane to the CFI. During the ensuing forced landing, the CFI maneuvered the airplane around a concrete block and landed it in a rough field. The airplane contacted a fence during the roll-out and came to a stop up-right. Post accident examination and test run of the engine did not reveal any anomalies.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power for an undetermined reason, which resulted in a forced landing after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02LA128
- Event ID
- 20020501X00602
- Case number
- FTW02LA128
- 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: 482074cd222324e67e974c312810fe5cc27dc67f8fb1ab45572ad815d2284c9b; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:59:07.371Z.