ERA12LA058 · Cessna 172N
Aircraft Leasing N739JN Cessna 172N · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE) to Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12LA058
- 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 172N
- 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
- N739JN
- Operator
- Aircraft Leasing N739JN
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, FLTo Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP), Pompano Beach, FL
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, while the airplane was descending on final approach, the throttle control became unresponsive. Although multiple settings were attempted, the engine remained at idle rpm, and the pilot made a forced landing on a road. The airplane collided with a lightpost and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. Although initial examination of the engine did not reveal any preimpact mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation, further examination revealed that the throttle cable had separated from its housing/end fitting. As a result, the throttle cable could not actuate the carburetor control, and the engine remained at idle rpm. A review of the airframe and engine logbooks revealed that the throttle cable was not maintained correctly and was never maintained in accordance with the manufacturer’s service manual.
Probable cause
The separation of the throttle cable from its fitting, which resulted in an inability to control engine power. Contributing to the accident was the inadequate maintenance by the owner.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA058
- Event ID
- 20111102X84135
- Case number
- ERA12LA058
- 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, 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: 65c43365994004d196e8deda869291f75a4249c654b4cc7d57660f4ec1afaa66; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:54:31.753Z.