WPR13LA098 · Cessna 172F
Beale Aero Club Cessna 172F · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Beale Air Force Base (BAB) to Yuba County Airport (MYV)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA098
- 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 172F
- 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
- N5208F
- Operator
- Beale Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Beale Air Force Base (BAB), Beale Air Force Base, CATo Yuba County Airport (MYV), Marysville, CA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had recently undergone an annual inspection, and the accident flight was the first flight since that maintenance was performed. After departure, the pilot made a 6-nautical-mile flight to another airport, at which point, he decided to perform several practice touch-and-go landings. Following a smooth landing, he configured the airplane for takeoff by confirming the fuel selector was positioned to both wing tanks and then applied full power. The airplane climbed to about 150 feet above ground level, and, then the engine suddenly experienced a total loss of power. The pilot could not restart the engine, and the airplane touched down in a muddy field and came to rest inverted.
The airplane's fuel selector handle was designed to be affixed to its shaft via a spring pin that slides through a hole on the handle and shaft only when the handle is properly aligned with the shaft; the spring pin prevents the handle from being installed incorrectly. A postaccident examination revealed that the fuel selector handle had been installed 180 degrees out of alignment, which was only possible because the spring pin attaching the handle to the shaft had been modified. Disassembly of the fuel valve also revealed excessive wear to the internal mechanism.
The mechanic who conducted the airplane's annual inspection reported that he had taken off the fuel selector handle to remove the panel and check for leaks. He checked the "off" position when receiving the airplane, but he did not check it after finishing the annual inspection. During postaccident examinations, the fuel flowed freely through the valve when the fuel selector handle was near the "off" position, and the fuel stopped flowing when the handle was in the "both" position consistent with the handle indicating an opposite selection. Although one of the magnetos had worn beyond service limits and was not producing an adequate spark, its failure was unlikely related to the total loss of engine power. It is likely that the mechanic improperly installed the fuel selector handle after taking it off during the annual inspection, which was only possible due to the incorrectly modified fuel selector handle assembly.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during initial climb due to fuel starvation, which resulted from maintenance personnel’s improper installation of the fuel selector handle. Contributing to the accident was an incorrectly modified fuel selector handle assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA098
- Event ID
- 20130122X15418
- Case number
- WPR13LA098
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2013-01-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e53b138663d7e5f0a510fdb1a738a66b78822aa98718e1413136f7000d75269b; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:46:56.406Z.