CEN18LA174 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Smith Field (SMD) to Smith Field (SMD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA174
- 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 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N9058F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Smith Field (SMD), Fort Wayne, INTo Smith Field (SMD), Fort Wayne, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1967)
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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
The pilot reported that he had departed on a local flight and leveled the airplane at 2,600 ft mean sea level when he observed a drop in engine rpm and heard a "thumping" sound from the engine. The pilot reversed course to return to the airport; the noise increased, he smelled burning oil, and the engine subsequently quit. The pilot conducted a forced landing to a field, during which the nose landing gear collapsed and the wings sustained substantial damage.
An examination of the airplane revealed no oil on the engine dipstick; however, oil was coming out of the oil cooler, and oil was visible on the right side of the cowling. Maintenance records indicated that the engine, including the oil cooler, was new and had been installed about 8 hours before the accident flight. An examination of the oil cooler revealed that the leak came from between the plates forming the oil circuit; it was likely due to a defect in the brazed joint between the plates. The engine lost power due to oil starvation.
Probable cause
The failure of the oil cooler due to a defect in the brazed joint, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to oil starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA174
- Event ID
- 20180516X20345
- Case number
- CEN18LA174
- 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: 2a34f2a1ab0b5d197291e0e05bef74c98eb40f862b9382d788cb7153c6edbb4d; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:10:31.065Z.