CEN23LA231 · Cessna 207
Garza Aircraft Cessna 207 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA231
- 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 207
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N91157
- Operator
- Garza Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that shortly after takeoff on the fourth flight of the day, he leveled the airplane about 500 ft above ground level (agl), and set the engine controls for 2,500 rpm and 25 inHg manifold pressure. Immediately after adjusting the engine controls, the engine speed decreased to idle. The pilot made a forced landing to a field and the airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing. A postaccident examination revealed that the throttle control lever had fractured, and the throttle control was no longer connected. The associated hardware remained attached to the throttle control cable attachment end.
The engine and fuel control valve were recently overhauled, reinstalled in the airplane, and had accumulated 86.3 hours.
A postaccident metallurgical examination revealed the throttle control lever attachment point exhibited wear and deformation on the surfaces of the areas that would have been in contact with the rod end attachment hardware. The throttle control lever attachment point also exhibited wear and a shallow impression of the splined collar on the inner surface of the attachment point bore, which was significantly worn. The splines on the collar were worn and uneven. The wear and deformation to the throttle control lever attachment point and the wear in the attachment point’s bore resulted in dimensions that no longer provided enough interference with the rod end attachment hardware to secure the connection.
The throttle linkage hardware build-up on the accident airplane was different than specified by the airplane service manual and was missing a washer. The difference likely resulted in the hardware becoming loose over time and allowing excessive wear of the splined collar and lever arm, and ultimately the failure of the lever arm attachment point.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the throttle control arm to the throttle control cable attachment end, which resulted in a failure of the control arm and a loss of engine power in flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA231
- Event ID
- 20230607192328
- Case number
- CEN23LA231
- 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, coordinates, 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: 3f3005acdc039092850995456f963da138df4c2debf1ed07dd85d989593684cd; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:42:10.831Z.