FTW04LA110 · Cessna 175B
Cessna 175B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Charles W. Baker Airport (2M8) to 1O7 · Claremore, OK
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04LA110
- 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 175B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N8172T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charles W. Baker Airport (2M8), Millington, TNTo 1O7 · Claremore, OK
- 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
- Electrical system, generator › Separation
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
- 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
The 800-hour pilot stated that while in cruise flight, he smelled "fumes", and the engine began to "shudder." But, the engine gauges indicated normal readings. The engine continued to shudder and the oil pressure dropped to zero within a few seconds, and it began to lose power. The pilot was unable to maintain altitude and performed a forced landing to a dirt field. Upon landing, the airplane rolled about 78 feet before it nosed over onto its back. External examination of the airplane revealed oil streaks over the left and right side of the engine cowling. Examination of the engine and maintenance records revealed the recently installed generator had partially separated due to the fact it had been installed improperly, which resulted in oil starvation.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the generator, which resulted in oil starvation. A factor was the unsuitable terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04LA110
- Event ID
- 20040423X00503
- Case number
- FTW04LA110
- 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: 2e45ca111193bddf0b2332f26a903da19a02602de172855ed260107ffc80df78; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:15:52.674Z.