WPR19LA092 · Cessna 172 N
Avcenter Cessna 172 N · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Nampa Municipal Airport (KMAN) to Nampa Municipal Airport (KMAN)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19LA092
- 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 N
- 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
- N6486J
- Operator
- Avcenter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nampa Municipal Airport (KMAN), Nampa, IDTo Nampa Municipal Airport (KMAN), Nampa, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1980)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and student pilot were performing maneuvers when the engine lost total power. The instructor pitched the nose of the airplane down and asked the student pilot to restart the engine. The student pilot was unable to rotate the engine using the starter, and the flight instructor verified that the master switch was in the “ON” position. The instructor tried to start the engine himself and was unsuccessful. The flight instructor performed a forced landing in a field. Examination revealed that the idle mixture adjustment screw and spring assembly had separated from the carburetor and were found in the lower cowling area. After the airplane was relocated to a nearby road the engine rotated via the starter. Examination of the idle mixture adjustment screw and spring assembly revealed no anomalies. The reason that the screw backed out of the carburetor could not be determined. The starter solenoid was removed and disassembled. The starter solenoid was examined and revealed a frayed and separated wire from the coil to a terminal end. The reasons for this fraying and separation could not be determined. Although the starter solenoid was faulty, it is unlikely that the engine would have restarted due to the separated idle mixture screw and spring assembly.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to a separated carburetor idle mixture adjustment screw and spring assembly for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19LA092
- Event ID
- 20190305X14814
- Case number
- WPR19LA092
- 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: b85664e66d53c1d38703ae1b89b4737fd5f5c17434bbdf5aadadd87e13f19b90; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:37:59.620Z.