CEN19LA015 · Cessna 172 G
Cessna 172 G · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From West Houston Airport (IWS) to West Houston Airport (IWS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA015
- 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 G
- 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
- N3973L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Houston Airport (IWS), Houston, TXTo West Houston Airport (IWS), Houston, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1966)
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that, as the airplane approached the runway after a short local, personal flight, the engine lost power. The pilot checked the fuel valve, mixture, and engaged the starter, but engine power was not restored. The pilot stated that the airplane was "headed directly toward a concrete revetment on the south bank" of a creek, so he banked the airplane left, and it subsequently impacted in the creek.
During recovery of the airplane, the fuel selector was found in the "both" position, and the throttle, mixture, and carburetor heat controls were found in the "forward" (off) position. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of any preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The atmospheric conditions at the time that the engine lost power were conducive to serious icing at any power, moderate icing at cruise power, and serious icing at descent power. Given the evidence, it is likely that carburetor ice accumulated during the flight and that the pilot did apply carburetor heat, which resulted in a loss of all engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat while operating in an area conducive to carburetor icing, which resulted in a total loss of engine power on approach and subsequent forced landing into a creek.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA015
- Event ID
- 20181028X13852
- Case number
- CEN19LA015
- 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: cda70fe74f4ae392b88d708909ffc0b1ba33335baacf19c093ba62f35050f8f6; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:23:33.606Z.