ERA12LA405 · Cessna 152
Dean International Flight School Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Page Field (FMY) to Miami Executive Airport (TMB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12LA405
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N67324
- Operator
- Dean International Flight School
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Page Field (FMY), Fort Myers, FLTo Miami Executive Airport (TMB), Miami, 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 (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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student and flight instructor reported that, during their preflight inspection, 4.5 quarts of oil was in the engine and the fuel tanks were full. Another quart of oil was added to the engine, and the flight departed. About 1 hour 40 minutes into the flight, the engine began to run rough. The engine subsequently stopped running and attempts to restart it were unsuccessful. The flight instructor force landed the airplane in a field, and it nosed over, resulting in substantial damage to the wings. During the recovery of the wreckage, the fuel tanks were drained, and each tank contained about 1 quart of fuel. There was no oil or fuel on the ground under the wreckage. The oil dipstick showed no oil on the stick. About 1 1/3 quarts of oil were drained from the engine. According to the engine manufacturer, the minimum safe quantity of oil in the sump is 2 quarts. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of an oil leak anywhere on the engine or airframe. The engine showed evidence of seizure due to a lack of lubrication. The engine oil and filter were reportedly changed during a 100-hour inspection that occurred 3 days before the accident. Although the crewmembers reported that they departed with sufficient oil and fuel, the physical evidence does not support that assertion; the lack of lubrication led to the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilots’ operation of the airplane with an insufficient supply of engine oil, resulting in engine seizure and total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA405
- Event ID
- 20120619X90522
- Case number
- ERA12LA405
- 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: 34e85b9199041e0ae11f7b3fcdeff5791a1b8af2ce4d401806ec2313122c6f50; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:35:06.326Z.