CEN11LA169 · Cessna 172P
Attitude Aviation Cessna 172P · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Lawrence County Airpark (HTW) to Logan County Airport (6L4)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA169
- 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 172P
- 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
- N55212
- Operator
- Attitude Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lawrence County Airpark (HTW), South Point, OHTo Logan County Airport (6L4), Logan, WV
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 (partial)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the takeoff run was normal, but during the initial climb the engine started to sound as if it was running rough. He immediately executed a steep left turn to return and land on the runway. On the final approach the airplane was high and fast, and floated down the runway. The airplane touched down about 2,000 feet down the runway and the pilot applied the toe brakes without effect. He applied full power and attempted to retract the flaps to avoid hitting the trees that were beyond the departure end of the runway. With the airspeed about 60 knots, the stall horn sounded and the airplane impacted the tree tops. The left wing dropped and the airplane rotated to the left with the nose impacting the ground. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no airframe or engine anomalies. Based on the temperature and dew point about the time of the accident, the conditions were favorable for serious icing at any power setting.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to carburetor icing and the pilot’s delayed use of carburetor heat and failure to attain the proper touchdown point on the runway during the precautionary landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA169
- Event ID
- 20110202X02535
- Case number
- CEN11LA169
- 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: 70d06d81b549b73db3c9dd6debfcebde592c3154b717bda470bf7fcc72fbbe5f; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:44:20.094Z.