DEN06LA014 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Hunt Field (LND) to Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06LA014
- 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 172L
- 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
- N2870Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hunt Field (LND), Lander, WYTo Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS), Rock Springs, WY
- 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he flew a total of 3 hours to two airports throughout the day. He stated that 5 miles from the third airport, he turned his landing light and carburetor heat on. Subsequently, both electrical and engine power were lost. The pilot stated he announced a "Mayday" call over the radio and performed a forced landing in hilly, rough terrain, resulting in substantial damage to the airplane. The pilot stated that after the impact he could immediately smell fuel in the cabin and was able to hear it dripping from the airplane. During the recovery of the airplane, one quart of fuel was recovered from the left wing. No further evidence of fuel was noted. An examination of the engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded the engine from producing power prior to impact. The airplane battery was replaced and the electrical system functioned properly. An examination of the remaining systems revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power for reasons undetermined. Contributing to the accident was the dark night and lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06LA014
- Event ID
- 20051117X01852
- Case number
- DEN06LA014
- 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 2005-11-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 15fa346c31e326a6c3c228b6132849bb29498d79a09487e72b37cf373ad7a060; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:14:30.101Z.