IAD03LA006 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Mad River Airpark (I54) to Madison County Airport (UYF)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD03LA006
- 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 177RG
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N7510V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mad River Airpark (I54), Tremont City, OHTo Madison County Airport (UYF), London, OH
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Ignition system, magneto › Separation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a night flight, while in cruise, there was a burning odor, which momentarily intensified, followed by a complete loss of engine power. The pilot attempted unsuccessfully to restart the engine, and performed a forced landing to a "dark spot" which turned out to be a soybean field. Examination of the engine revealed that the single drive, dual magneto had separated from its attachment point on the engine, and was lying in the engine cowling. The magneto attachment hardware was also located in the engine cowling, and examination of the lock washer revealed no signs of being torqued. In addition, the studs that were used to attach the magneto to the engine accessory housing were not damaged. The magneto had been removed and reinstalled during a replacement of the engine crankcase, which occurred approximately 60 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the single drive, dual magneto, which resulted in its separation from the engine and a subsequent total loss of engine power. Factors included the crops in the forced landing field, and the night lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD03LA006
- Event ID
- 20021101X05417
- Case number
- IAD03LA006
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-10-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 98e0715f3173435996e34a67fc6a3aa7209e42643f128a4800e3747667516c44; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:33:51.332Z.