SEA06LA049 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Harvey Field (S43) to Harvey Field (S43)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06LA049
- 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 172N
- 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
- N492SF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harvey Field (S43), Snohomish, WATo Harvey Field (S43)
- 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
- 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
- Carburetor heat control › Not activated
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 reported that shortly after takeoff, the engine lost power after the aircraft attained an altitude of about 250 to 300 feet above ground level. The flight instructor took over the flight controls and accomplished an off airport landing in an open field that was flooded by recent rains. During the landing roll, the airplane nosed over. The wings and a lift strut were damaged, fuel was leaking from the fuel tank(s), and the top of the vertical stabilizer was crushed. After the wreckage was recovered the engine was prepared for an engine run. It was found that the engine started and ran smoothly with no anomalies noted during the run that lasted about 5 minutes in duration. The nearest weather reporting facility located 6 nautical miles to the west was reporting a temperature of 42 degrees F, and dew point of 36 degrees F. The carburetor icing probability chart indicated that for the reported temperature and dew point, the aircraft was operating in probable serious carburetor icing conditions at cruise or climb power.
Probable cause
Carburetor heat was not used during the initial climb in probable serious carburetor icing conditions during cruise power. Carburetor icing conditions and wet terrain were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06LA049
- Event ID
- 20060227X00242
- Case number
- SEA06LA049
- 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: aea7888dedfe22321d3e058fd37d5dc9900c1235516a3e1cd70e2c74b3da9865; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:07:53.407Z.