WPR14LA023 · Cessna 172 - M
Cessna 172 - M · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Broadus Airport (00F) to Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA023
- 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 - M
- 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
- N80257
- Operator
- Halderman Marc D
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Broadus Airport (00F), Broadus, MTTo Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1975)
- 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
- 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 systems
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during cruise flight, the engine began running roughly. He began troubleshooting the problem and turned on the carburetor heat but only for a few seconds. The pilot's attempts to restore full engine power were unsuccessful, so he chose to initiate an emergency landing to a field. During the landing flare, the airplane encountered a wind gust, which pitched the airplane's nose down. The nose gear dug into the soil, and the airplane nosed over.
A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Weather conditions in the area at the time of the accident were conducive to the formation of carburetor icing at cruise power. It is likely that the pilot did not apply carburetor heat long enough to prevent the accumulation of carburetor icing, which caused the engine to run roughly and lose partial power.
Probable cause
A rough-running engine and partial loss of power, which resulted from the pilot’s failure to use carburetor heat appropriately while operating in an area conducive to carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA023
- Event ID
- 20131021X12554
- Case number
- WPR14LA023
- 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: af4c8de21ab74c3d4a642e9b0f27c88b63ddd232e4d6e7677a9ab16d62ded8c5; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:59:34.920Z.