DFW05CA237 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Blue Sky Airfield (2TX0) to La Junta Municipal Airport (LHX)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05CA237
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172M
- 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
- N19998
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blue Sky Airfield (2TX0), Amarillo, TXTo La Junta Municipal Airport (LHX), La Junta, 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
- 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
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 1,300-hour private pilot reported that during the initial takeoff climb, while at an estimated altitude of 75 to 80 feet above the ground, the engine RPM decayed to 1,950 RPM. Subsequently, the airplane's rate of climb was reduced to zero. The pilot responded by lowering the nose of the airplane and extending the flaps. With no remaining usable runway, the pilot turned the airplane to the left and elected to perform an emergency landing to a field. The pilot added that while maneuvering to avoid a fence, the airplane stalled, impacted the terrain and came to rest on its right side. The pilot, his 3 passengers and two small dogs were able to egress the airplane unassisted. The airplane was engulfed in flames a few minutes later. About 13 minutes after the mishap the weather reporting station 12 miles northeast of the accident site reported, the wind from 040 degrees at 13 knots, the temperature 57 degrees Fahrenheit, and dew point of 55 degrees Fahrenheit. According to information on a Carburetor Icing Probability Chart at the operating temperature/dew point, the airplane was found to be operating within the "serious icing at cruise power" range. Examination of the engine did not revealed any mechanical anomalies. Runway 35 was reported as a 3,800-foot long by 60-foot wide turf runway. The field elevation at the airport was reported at 3,615 feet and the density altitude was calculated at 4,347 feet. The estimated weight of the airplane at the time of departure was at its maximum takeoff weight of 2,300 pounds.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed, which resulted in an inadvertent stall. Contributing factors were the reported loss of engine power for undetermined reasons and the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05CA237
- Event ID
- 20051013X01648
- Case number
- DFW05CA237
- 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: ee5342e0f4c2749d8003ca11c9f8af23a52778691224c7eb2087d53b14b40102; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:54:00.635Z.