MIA07CA141 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Lake Norman Airpark (14A) to Lake Norman Airpark (14A)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07CA141
- 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
- N6729A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Norman Airpark (14A), Mooresville, NCTo Lake Norman Airpark (14A), Mooresville, NC
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- 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 › 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
During preflight inspection of the airplane water was detected and drained from the left wing fuel tank; but no other water was noted in the fuel system. The flight departed and approximately 20 minutes into the flight, the engine experienced a loss of power. Application of carburetor heat momentarily restored engine power but the engine power decreased, and further attempts to restore engine power were unsuccessful. The pilot then maneuvered for a forced landing on a golf course but due to golfers on the intended fairway, the pilot landed long. The nose landing gear fork fractured after contacting a curb and the left wing contacted the ground. Postaccident examination of the airframe revealed six ounces of water in the gascolator. The seals of the fuel filler caps were "cracked." There was no evidence of preimpact mechanical failure of the engine or its systems.
Probable cause
The inadequate preflight inspection of the airplane by the pilot-in-command for his failure to remove all water contamination from the fuel system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07CA141
- Event ID
- 20071017X01593
- Case number
- MIA07CA141
- 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: 7917eea8ed8c1873c42ab75cdee8967101887faf73ca07f4ce626a7eed935751; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:26:53.820Z.