CEN19LA229 · Cessna 305A
Cessna 305A · Accident: fuel related during takeoff
From Houston Memorial Airport (M48) to Houston Memorial Airport (M48)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA229
- 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 305A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 305
- 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
- N1831
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houston Memorial Airport (M48), Houston, MOTo Houston Memorial Airport (M48), Houston, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 68 years (built 1951)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Fuel related
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was practicing full-stop takeoffs and landings in the airport traffic pattern. During the fourth takeoff, about 500 to 600 ft above the ground, the airplane's engine experienced a total loss of power. The pilot performed a forced landing and the airplane impacted trees and terrain, resulting in substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage. Postaccident examination, which included three engine test runs, failed to duplicate the power loss. Examination of the carburetor revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Atmospheric conditions about the time of the accident were conducive to the development of serious carburetor icing at glide power. Given the absence of mechanical anomalies, it is likely that the loss of engine power was the result of carburetor ice accumulation while the engine was being operated at reduced power settings during the previous landings and ground operations.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during initial climb due to carburetor icing, which resulted in a forced landing and impact with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA229
- Event ID
- 20190721X51301
- Case number
- CEN19LA229
- 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, cause areas. 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: 8b3a66ead2763c03547d5020268341dc6874abc6e208741377b54da9e9ad905e; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:29:43.313Z.