ANC06CA138 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From Palmer, AK to Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAAQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06CA138
- 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
- N7939B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palmer, AKTo Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAAQ), Palmer, AK
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private certificated pilot was departing from a remote area that was about 900 feet long on a Title 14, CFR Part 91, local area personal flight. The pilot reported that he previously had trouble with the airplane's charging system. When he attempted to start the airplane for takeoff, the battery was dead. He placed the magneto switch on the left magneto to facilitate starting, and hand-propped the engine. He then began the takeoff roll, which was longer than he expected. In order to miss trees at the end of the departure area, the pilot applied left rudder to maneuver past the trees, but the right horizontal stabilizer and right elevator collided with high brush. The airplane became airborne, and the pilot continued to his destination, about 8 miles away. Upon landing, the pilot discovered substantial damage to the stabilizer and elevator. The pilot reported that he also discovered that the magneto switch was still on the left magneto position, and that he did not select the "both" magneto position prior to the takeoff, thereby reducing available engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the checklist to ensure the proper positioning of the magneto switch during the takeoff roll, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power, and a subsequent collision with high vegetation during the takeoff run. A factor contributing to the accident was the pilot's improper positioning of the magneto switch on the left magneto position.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06CA138
- Event ID
- 20061013X01511
- Case number
- ANC06CA138
- 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: 74300cfe763e78af3a32864ab67042181d3f79c5c0f16864290b23c48c52d27b; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:24:02.929Z.