CEN12LA580 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Philip Airport (PHP) to Black Hills Airport-Clyde Ice Field (SPF)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA580
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N140XX
- Operator
- Bowen Bruce C
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Philip Airport (PHP), Philip, SDTo Black Hills Airport-Clyde Ice Field (SPF), Spearfish, SD
- 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
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After an uneventful cross-country flight, the solo student pilot was setting up to enter the downwind leg of the traffic pattern at his destination airport. When he applied carburetor heat, the engine rpm dropped below 1000. Unable to continue to the planned runway, the student pilot elected to land the airplane in an adjacent field. During the landing roll, the airplane struck a barbed wire fence and nosed over, coming to rest inverted. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed debris lodged in the throttle body beneath the carburetor venturi. The debris appeared to be remnants of aluminum tape or foil. Additionally, what appeared to be a small piece of exhaust insulation or asbestos wrap was found within the carburetor heat box. No other anomalies with the engine or airframe were discovered that could have contributed to the partial loss of engine power. It is unknown how long the foreign object debris was present below the carburetor venturi; however, the airplane had operated for about 3 flight hours since its most recent annual inspection, which was conducted 3 months before the accident flight. The presence of debris lodged beneath the carburetor venturi is consistent with the student pilot's statement that he experienced a loss of power and engine rpm when carburetor heat was applied.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to debris lodged beneath the throttle body of the carburetor venturi.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA580
- Event ID
- 20120828X71122
- Case number
- CEN12LA580
- 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: 687da46ff3786767004b5aa088b92d960a32dd0122edc5f5b7b0cbd395b900ab; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:33:04.601Z.