ERA24LA198 · Cessna 172 P
Florida Aviation Career Training Cessna 172 P · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ) to Palatka Municipal - Lt. Kay Larkin Field (28J)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA198
- 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 P
- 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
- N99442
- Operator
- Florida Aviation Career Training
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ), Saint Augustine, FLTo Palatka Municipal - Lt. Kay Larkin Field (28J), Palatka, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1985)
- 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
- 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 (partial)
- 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 pilot reported that when attempting to climb from his cruise altitude to an altitude at which he could begin a practice approach, the engine began to run rough and climb performance deteriorated. He discontinued the practice approach and turned direct to the airport; checking his instruments, he saw that the engine oil pressure was low and "in the red.” While proceeding to the airport, the engine performance continued to degrade, and the pilot was unable to maintain altitude. About 2 miles from the airport, the pilot realized he would not be able to make the runway and performed a forced landing in a field. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage during the landing. Postaccident examination of the engine found the nose oil seal was protruding about 3/8 inch out of the recess in the crankcase, which allowed engine oil to be expelled from the crankcase and resulted in the loss of oil pressure. The crankshaft main journals and bearings and the rod journals and bearings exhibited light scoring. This was likely due to the lack of oil for lubrication and resulted in the power loss that the pilot experienced as the journals and bearings began to overheat. The engine had been operated for about 6,089 hours during the 19-year period since its last overhaul. The engine manufacturer recommended overhaul at 12 years or 2,000 hours of operation, whichever occurred first. Had the engine been overhauled in accordance with the engine manufacturer’s recommendations the nose oil seal would have been replaced, and it is likely that it would have remained secure.
Probable cause
The failure of the nose oil seal to remain secure in the engine crankcase, which resulted in a loss of engine oil and partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA198
- Event ID
- 20240501194187
- Case number
- ERA24LA198
- 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: db5f6eacca291c84116d76325d350e36c68ea468415e42ac39e208da180c79a7; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:43:21.491Z.