DEN05LA058 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP) to Montrose Regional Airport (MTJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05LA058
- 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 172
- 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
- N3985F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP), Bullhead City, AZTo Montrose Regional Airport (MTJ), Montrose, CO
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While descending near a mountain canyon area, the engine lost partial power and the pilot initiated an emergency landing into an area of trees. The pilot stated that the engine had lost approximately seventy-five percent of its power and that he was too far into a canyon to reverse course. He then attempted an emergency landing into an area of trees, and subsequently, the airplane stalled and impacted the snow covered terrain. In addition, the pilot stated that "the aircraft did not have a lot of power to begin with and he has had icing problems in the past...he [believed] that icing is what caused his loss of power." According to the "Carburetor Icing Probability Chart," the atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to "Serious Icing at Cruise Power." A review of the wreckage revealed the carburetor heat was found in the OFF position.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight planning during the descent which resulted in partial loss of engine power due to carburetor ice. Contributing factors were the pilot's failure to select carburetor heat during the descent and unsuitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05LA058
- Event ID
- 20050228X00244
- Case number
- DEN05LA058
- 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: 76daeb2596639c83585bbcec5a485ccde06dac5624b0e800da7c99b4b51d0709; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:04:17.195Z.