ERA19LA280 · Cessna 172 K
Rtd Aviation Cessna 172 K · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Atlantic City International Airport (ACY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA280
- 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
- 0
- 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 K
- 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
- N78192
- Operator
- Rtd Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Atlantic City, NJTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1968)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 student pilot was approaching the airport to land at the conclusion of a solo cross-country flight. As he turned the airplane from the base to final approach leg of the traffic pattern, the engine started to run rough, and subsequently lost all power. He attempted to restart the engine, but was unsuccessful. He then performed a forced landing into 70-ft-tall treetops. The airplane came to rest in the treetops, resulting in substantial damage to both wings. Examination of the engine revealed two pieces of debris inside the carburetor airbox downstream from the air filter element. The debris was consistent with epoxy/sealant used during repairs of the airbox. The airbox appeared to have been repaired and patched several times, and some of the sealant on the repairs appeared to be loose. When the debris was placed in the carburetor venturi for reference, it blocked about 50 to 75% of the opening. If the sealant debris came loose inside the airbox while the engine was running, it is likely that it would follow the air path into the carburetor venturi and block the air flow into the carburetor. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to carburetor icing; however, the pilot reported applying the carburetor heat on the downwind traffic pattern leg and did not notice any anomalies with the engine at that time. Had significant ice built up in the carburetor during the descent, it is likely that the engine would run roughly soon after the application of the carburetor heat and continue to do so as the ice melted.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to the ingestion of sealant material that had loosened inside the carburetor airbox.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA280
- Event ID
- 20190924X51230
- Case number
- ERA19LA280
- 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: 0fe752b1f83248fe70d5b4019789d46aef05b8940620244c521b710f44c212d3; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:13:08.829Z.