CEN13LA216 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Park Falls Municipal Airport (PKF) to 3K6 · St Jacob, IL
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA216
- 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 172
- 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
- N8033B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Park Falls Municipal Airport (PKF), Park Falls, WITo 3K6 · St Jacob, IL
- 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 › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during the flight before the accident flight, the engine began running roughly during cruise flight with the right wing fuel tank selected. After attempting to resolve the issue by applying carburetor heat, he made a precautionary landing at a nearby grass airstrip. After landing, the pilot loosened the right fuel tank cap and heard a "whoosh" sound and the metal fuel tank "crinkle." The pilot stated that he thought he had resolved the fuel tank venting issue when he removed the right fuel tank cap. After spending 30 minutes on the ground, the pilot restarted the engine with both fuel tanks selected and performed an uneventful engine run-up before departing. Shortly after takeoff, the engine experienced a total loss of power, and the pilot executed a forced landing into a marsh. A postaccident examination revealed that the external and cross-tank vent lines were obstructed by foreign material likely deposited by insects. In this condition, the engine responded to cockpit controls during an operational test run. Following the engine test run, the right fuel tank cap was loosened, and a "whoosh" sound was heard. Testing of the right fuel cap revealed a restriction to the flapper-valve assembly, which prevented air from passing freely through the vented cap as designed. The combination of a restricted vented fuel cap and the obstructed vent lines likely prevented the fuel from flowing to the engine and resulted in fuel starvation and the total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The restricted vented fuel cap and obstructed fuel vent lines, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA216
- Event ID
- 20130401X60051
- Case number
- CEN13LA216
- 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: caa59783fe788aa0d199bb061f0c68b429aadfc8bd52777afa420ba8d4e0adaa; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:12:05.289Z.