CEN11LA001 · Cessna 172D
Cessna 172D · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From Animas Air Park (00C) to Page Municipal Airport (PGA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA001
- 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 172D
- 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
- N2593
- Operator
- Meca Supply
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Animas Air Park (00C), Durango, COTo Page Municipal Airport (PGA), Page, AZ
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The first takeoff attempt was aborted when the passenger's door popped open. The pilot taxied back to the end of the runway, closed the door, and began the takeoff. During the second takeoff attempt, as the airplane reached about 200 feet, the engine sputtered and lost power. The pilot enriched the mixture and applied carburetor heat, and the engine sputtered and lost power a second time. The pilot said that, during the forced landing, he shut the fuel off and turned off the master switch before the airplane impacted a dry river bottom. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the fuel selector was found in the BOTH position at the accident site, even though the pilot reported he shut the fuel off prior to impact. The engine was test run to full power, and no anomalies were noted. It is likely that the pilot inadvertently turned off the fuel before the last takeoff, particularly since he was unfamiliar with this model of airplane.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to the pilot inadvertently moving the fuel selector to the OFF position. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's unfamiliarity with this model accident airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA001
- Event ID
- 20101003X43835
- Case number
- CEN11LA001
- 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: bee84bf6f47244fed7329a75b5d19d906521376aaa079dd83a6e50954278217c; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:26:46.618Z.