WPR12LA306 · Cessna 172N
Teton Leasing Cessna 172N · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA) to Rockford Municipal Airport (2U4)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA306
- 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
- N5204K
- Operator
- Teton Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA), Idaho Falls, IDTo Rockford Municipal Airport (2U4), Rockford, ID
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that, while the airplane was in level cruise flight, the engine began to vibrate, and the rpm dropped to about 1,900. The airplane could not maintain altitude, so the instructor took control of the airplane and chose to divert to a nearby airport. During the approach, the altitude and airspeed were too high to safely land on the runway, so the instructor aborted the landing. He subsequently made a forced landing to an open field. During the landing, the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted, which resulted in substantial damage to the wings and tail section.
A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the Nos. 2 and 3 cylinders had no compression. A large amount of metal dust and debris were found in the No. 2 cylinder's intake and exhaust ports. The No. 3 cylinder was removed, and the exhaust valve head was found embedded in the cylinder head. The piston head was severely damaged, and the valve stem was missing and had likely exited the engine out of the exhaust. The reason for the failure of the No. 3 cylinder exhaust valve could not be determined due to the damage to the exhaust valve head and the missing valve stem. Although the debris in the No.2 cylinder's ports would have prevented the valve from sealing properly and resulted in reduced compression, it would not have caused the partial loss of engine power as the No. 3 cylinder's failure would have.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power during cruise flight due to the failure of the No. 3 cylinder exhaust valve for reasons that could not be determined due to the damage to the valve head and the missing valve stem. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor’s improper approach to the runway, which resulted in an aborted landing and subsequent off-airport landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA306
- Event ID
- 20120716X64803
- Case number
- WPR12LA306
- 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: 92d36b02684c4f54ce9188bf2f306472322fa3f7c0fd2f2372411de058d6ce32; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:55:11.842Z.