WPR22LA242 · Cessna 120
Cessna 120 · Accident during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA242
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 120
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 120
- 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
- N2056V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 75 years (built 1947)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident pilot reported that, 2 days before the accident, the airplane was flown uneventfully by another pilot to the destination airport using the right fuel tank. The pilot who previously flew the airplane reported that he had refueled the airplane with 15 gallons of fuel before that flight, which lasted about 1 hour and 40 minutes; he used the right tank for that flight. He did not indicate that the tanks had been completely filled, noting that 15 gallons was all he needed for the flight. As he approached the destination, he switched to the left fuel tank and landed uneventfully.
According to the accident pilot, after conducting a preflight inspection on the day of the accident, he taxied the airplane out to the runway using the right fuel tank. He recalled that the right tank was full of fuel, which would be inconsistent with the right tank’s fuel state if the previous flight had been flown using the right tank. Following an engine runup, he departed. As the airplane was about 400 ft above ground level, the engine rpm decayed to about 1,800 rpm. The pilot performed a 180° turn but was unable to make it to the runway and landed on an airport perimeter road. The airplane bounced, impacted the fence, and came to rest upright on the airport transient parking ramp. The pilot stated that, after the accident, he observed the right fuel line was “severed” with “pouring out fuel.”
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the right fuel line from the lower door frame structure had separated from the fuel fitting. Examination of the recovered airframe and engine revealed no evidence of any preexisting mechanical malfunction that would have precluded normal operation.
Although the investigation did not identify performance information for the O-200-A engine installed on the Cessna 120 specifically for fuel burn, given the fuel burn of the O-200-A, and estimated flight time, the previous flight would have used about 10 gallons of fuel. This would place the fuel level in the fuel tank below 1/4 tank, which would prohibit takeoff according to the airplane owner’s manual. Although the pilot may have inadvertently used the wrong fuel tank for takeoff, which could have unported the fuel tank and interrupted the subsequent fuel delivery to the engine, the investigation could not determine the position of the fuel selector valve at the time of the accident. The reason for the total loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA242
- Event ID
- 20220708105433
- Case number
- WPR22LA242
- 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: bad318e849b67e844dbfe601009fb00e6d854f0b61faf64fa30087b945616de9; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:25:49.447Z.