CHI06FA184 · Cessna 172F
Cessna 172F · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Lewis Airfield (70IN) to Lewis Airfield (70IN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06FA184
- 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
- 1 · 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 172F
- 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
- N8829U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lewis Airfield (70IN), Milan, INTo Lewis Airfield (70IN)
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Fuel contamination; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Flow restricted
- Fuel system, cap › Obstructed
- Fuel system, vent › Obstructed
- Object › Tree(s)
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane sustained substantial damage on impact with trees and terrain following an in-flight loss of engine power. An air traffic controller received a radio transmission from an airplane in reference to a distress call of another airplane making a forced landing near a lake. Logbook entries showed that the pilot's last flight was about one year prior to the accident and the flight was in the accident airplane. An on-scene examination of the wreckage revealed the right fuel tank's vented fuel tank cap contained debris in its vent holes. The fuel vent was found blocked with debris. Liquid was found in the bottom of the carburetor bowl. The engine was test run satisfactorily. The report of the examination of the liquids from the wreckage stated, "Aviation gasoline was examined in addition to solids collected in the fuel. Solids were mixtures ranging from carboxylates to esters of carboxylic acids with rust and cellulose fibers. The fuel was similar to a reference AVGAS sample although compositions depend upon the manufacturer and some variations were noted."
Probable cause
The in-flight loss of engine power during cruise flight due to restricted fuel flow and the inadequate preflight the pilot performed. An additional cause was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06FA184
- Event ID
- 20060804X01089
- Case number
- CHI06FA184
- 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: 67da029601f9bcc14916c295d4cac5b3cfb23ea66e7956216536e04024ff491d; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:08:18.809Z.