SEA07LA172 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to Caravelas Airport (CRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA172
- 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 177RG
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N2144Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CATo Caravelas Airport (CRQ)
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure
- Fluid, oil › Loss, total
- Lubricating system, oil gasket › Leak
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, incorrect
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the first flight after installation of an overhauled engine, overhauled propeller and overhauled propeller governor, the airplane's engine lost power, and the pilot made a forced landing on an interstate highway in a major metropolitan area. During the landing, the airplane's left wing struck a car. The pilot stated that he selected the highway as a landing area "as everything else was rooftops." Examination of the engine revealed an uncontained catastrophic failure of the number four connecting rod. There was significant heat distress at the number four connecting rod, and adjacent components consistent with lack of oil lubrication. The oil dipstick did not register any oil in the sump, and a significant oil film was on the firewall and belly. The propeller governor was found installed contrary to the engine manufacturer's Parts Catalog and Service Instructions. A single gasket was used to mount the governor instead of the required plate sandwiched between two gaskets. A clear and evident oil path was seen from the edge of the single gasket. The improper governor installation allowed engine oil to leak overboard, resulting in a loss of lubrication and failure of the number four connecting rod.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the propeller governor (gasket) by maintenance personnel, which resulted in a oil exhaustion induced total loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA172
- Event ID
- 20070703X00871
- Case number
- SEA07LA172
- 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 2007-06-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 203b96e7f4fbb238b5c836b8b42ba3b537542173a926ba012bd59bab6f31308c; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:29:11.326Z.