CEN12LA508 · Cessna 172M 2300
Cessna 172M 2300 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Kokomo Municipal Airport (OKK) to South St Paul Municipal Airport/Richard E Fleming Field (SGS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA508
- 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 172M 2300
- 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
- N12504
- Operator
- Richard Smith
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kokomo Municipal Airport (OKK), Kokomo, INTo South St Paul Municipal Airport/Richard E Fleming Field (SGS), St. Paul, MN
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after about 2 hours 20 minutes of uneventful flight and while cruising at 4,500 ft mean sea level, the engine rpm decreased. He applied carburetor heat, and, about 2 minutes later, the engine rpm decreased to about 1,500, the oil pressure dropped to 0, and the propeller stopped. The oil temperature indicator in the cockpit was in the normal range. The pilot chose to execute a forced landing in a soybean field since an airport was not within glide distance. Upon touchdown in the field, the airplane flipped over and then came to rest inverted.
Examination of the airplane wreckage revealed that a sufficient quantity of oil (about 5 quarts) was present in the engine and that the lubrication system was intact and appeared to be in compliance with applicable airworthiness directives. However, two pieces of foreign plasticlike material, which were about 1/4 inch by 3/8 inch and 1/4 inch by 5/16 inch, respectively, were found lodged in the oil sump screen. The debris likely blocked oil distribution to the engine, which resulted in oil starvation and the subsequent connecting rod failure. It could not be determined how the debris got into the oil system; the exact source of the debris also could not be determined.
Probable cause
Internal engine component failures, which resulted from oil starvation due to debris in the oil system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA508
- Event ID
- 20120802X51100
- Case number
- CEN12LA508
- 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: 825c0ca2721d407112d2e9f802e56348f81f96c900de6b6b3543018bd23f4d7b; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:11:32.772Z.