SEA02LA107 · Cessna 172E
Cessna 172E · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD) to Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02LA107
- 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 172E
- 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
- N5383T
- Operator
- Carric A. Scott · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD), Troutdale, ORTo Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD)
- 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
- 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
The pilot flew an uneventful one hour flight in the Continental O-300-D equipped Cessna 172E and then departed on a second one hour flight after topping off the fuel tanks. Both flights were being conducted as maintenance checks following the replacement of all six cylinder piston rings and the re-honing of all six cylinders. While on final approach to runway 25 the pilot encountered "very rough turbulence" as he was reducing power and the engine lost power. The pilot believed that he could not make the field and executed a 180 degrees course reversal landing off airport in an area of soft terrain covered by high grass. During the landing roll the aircraft's nose gear collapsed. On site examination revealed fuel in the aircraft's fuel system immediately following the forced landing. Post crash examination revealed no evidence of any mechanical malfunction with the engine, ignition, air delivery or fuel system. The only discrepancy noted was the non-functionality of the aircraft's right wing gas cap vent, which was required under FAA Airworthiness Directive 79-10-14R. Examination revealed that the rubber gasket would not unseat and allowed normal venting. The left fuel tank vent was examined and found to function satisfactorily. The engine was subsequently test run with a new carburetor and then the reassembled original (accident) carburetor with satisfactory results. The fuel system was examined and no blockages were found within any of the lines and no particulates were found in any of the fuel filters.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for an undetermined (non-mechanical) reason. Contributing factors were high grass and soft terrain which lead to the collapse of the nose gear during the landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02LA107
- Event ID
- 20020627X00990
- Case number
- SEA02LA107
- 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: 3236e4c31483833e0deda18724c7e85844f79368be2533c57b1d7daee7fc760a; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:41:36.843Z.