ERA15CA327 · Cessna 172 UNDESIGNAT
Skywalker Aviation Cessna 172 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Palm Beach County Glades Airport (PHK) to Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA327
- 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 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N8952B
- Operator
- Skywalker Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Beach County Glades Airport (PHK), Pahokee, FLTo Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), West Palm Beach, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 57 years (built 1958)
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After descending to 400 feet above mean sea level along a beach on the return leg of a cross country flight, the pilot attempted to increase power to level off but, the engine would not respond. The pilot then checked to make sure the fuel valve was on "BOTH," and the primer was in and locked. He then attempted to restart the engine. The engine however, would not restart. The pilot determined that the beach was the best and safest place to land, so he extended the wing flaps to the full down position, and landed on the beach. During the landing, the nose landing gear dug into the sand, and collapsed. Examination of the airplane revealed that it was substantially damaged and approximately 12 gallons of fuel was still on board. Further examination revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical failure or malfunctions of the engine that would have precluded normal operation. After the wreckage was recovered the engine was started and run at full power. Review of a carburetor icing chart revealed that atmospheric conditions around the time of the accident were conducive to icing at glide and cruise power. When asked if he had used carburetor heat during his descent prior to the loss of engine power, the pilot advised that he had not used it.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat prior to descending in atmospheric conditions conducive to icing, which resulted in a total loss of power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA327
- Event ID
- 20150827X40535
- Case number
- ERA15CA327
- 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, coordinates. 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: e103783ae427528c48e022585a8a3b38cdb84962f5204e3664924acfd698fbd4; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:43:21.654Z.