ERA24LA241 · Cessna 172 K
US Aviation Academy Cessna 172 K · Accident en route
From Dutchess County Airport (POU) to Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA241
- 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
- N78445
- Operator
- U.S. Aviation Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dutchess County Airport (POU), Wappingers Falls, NYTo Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD), Hartford, CT
- Aircraft age
- About 56 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
- En route
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was filled with fuel before the student pilot began the solo cross-country flight. About 30 minutes after departure, at 5,500 ft mean sea level, the engine rpm began to decrease until the engine lost all power, and the propeller was not windmilling. The pilot tried to restart the engine, but the propeller would not turn. She applied carburetor heat after the total loss of engine power but was not able to regain engine power. The pilot attempted to glide the airplane to a nearby airport, but it impacted wooded terrain about 1 mile from the airport and came to rest inverted.
A review of a carburetor icing probability chart revealed a risk of serious icing at glide power; however, the engine was at cruise power before the loss of engine power.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed about 3/4 of the total fuel capacity remained onboard, and fuel was leaking from the wing fuel tanks that were compromised during the impact. The engine was subsequently examined at a recovery facility. Powertrain and valvetrain continuity were confirmed throughout the engine and no anomalies were noted. The engine was then started on the airframe. It started without hesitation and ran continuously at idle power. Due to airframe damage, higher power settings were not attempted.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA241
- Event ID
- 20240603194370
- Case number
- ERA24LA241
- 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: 939296df0dfbed9b9486783966d0f9d8f71e59fe24c0f715967277e03d8c1e0a; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:50:05.550Z.