WPR25LA040 · Cessna 172I
Cessna 172I · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR25LA040
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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 172I
- 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
- N8390L
- Operator
- Tom Bliss
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG), Flagstaff, AZ
- 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 · climb to cruise
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On November 17, 2024, about 0930 mountain standard time, a Cessna 172I, N8390L, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Cortes Lakes, Arizona. The pilot sustained minor injuries, and the passenger was not injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The pilot reported that while in cruise flight, he thought he heard the engine misfire and verified the engine instruments showed normal indications along with throttle and mixture control positions. The engine misfired again along with a decrease in RPM and performance. The pilot advanced the throttle and mixture controls and turned on carburetor heat, which corrected the loss of RPM. While attempting to return to the airport, the engine began to lose power a second time, and the pilot was unable to maintain altitude. He cycled the engine controls, switched the fuel tanks from “both” to all positions and back to “both,” and completed the emergency checklist, however, was unable to restore engine power. The pilot stated that he initiated a forced landing to a nearby clearing, and while maneuvering the airplane to the clearing, he was flying on the edge of a stall until just before it impacted the ground. The airplane landed hard on uneven desert terrain and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings. The airplane was recovered to a secure location for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR25LA040
- Event ID
- 20241119195508
- Case number
- WPR25LA040
- 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. 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: 87efff0e04f285e1bd07efcc7019312cd8b81c1c19b84d77f8504a6dbbbc5e57; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:28:59.122Z.