CEN10LA306 · Cessna 177RG
Cessna 177RG · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (KUMP) to Williamsburg Jamestown Airport (KJGG)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA306
- 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
- N2016Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (KUMP), Indianapolis, INTo Williamsburg Jamestown Airport (KJGG), Williamsburg, VA
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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 (total)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on a cross-country flight, the airplane experienced a total loss of engine power when the No. 2 cylinder, piston, and connecting rod separated from the engine. The pilot reported that the airplane had insufficient altitude to reach the nearest airport, and a forced landing was made into an agricultural field. A postaccident metallurgical examination revealed multiple fatigue fractures of the attachment fasteners used to secure the No. 2 cylinder to the crankcase. The observed fatigue was the result of an insufficient fastener preload. The engine had accumulated 519 hours since the last major overhaul. Review of the engine logbook established that there were no maintenance actions completed to the No. 2 cylinder, piston, or connecting rod since the last overhaul. Therefore, the insufficient fastener preload was likely due to improper overhaul practices during the last engine overhaul.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to the fatigue failure of the No. 2 cylinder attachment fasteners as a result of improper engine overhaul practices.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA306
- Event ID
- 20100608X95300
- Case number
- CEN10LA306
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: 5ed576cfdc635db25439ffdf2f8c36e9a8bef21df910569e3fede938df878247; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:25:18.602Z.