WPR25LA082 · Cessna 172K
Cessna 172K · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Lodi Airport (1O3) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR25LA082
- 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
- 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 172K
- 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
- N79910
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lodi Airport (1O3), Acampo, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 56 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
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 January 23, 2025, about 1515 Pacific standard time, a Cessna 172K, N79910 , was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Columbia, California. The pilot and passenger sustained serious injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight.
The pilot stated that after departure he continued east to Columbia and entered the downwind leg of the traffic pattern at a 45° angle for runway 17. On the final approach, he noted that the airplane was high and maneuvered the airplane in a forward slip in an attempt to descend faster. As the airplane approached the runway, it was still too high, and the pilot determined there was not enough available distance to land safely. The pilot initiated a go-around by pushing the throttle fully forward to increase engine power and turned the carburetor heat off.
Shortly thereafter, the engine rpm began to decrease. He verified that the mixture, throttle, and carburetor heat were all fully forward and confirmed that the fuel selector was set to both tanks. When he moved the throttle aft and forward, the engine briefly surged, and the rpm increased. As he searched for a suitable off-airport landing site, he observed that the surrounding terrain was hilly with trees and brush. The engine then lost rpm again. With limited options, he turned left in an attempt to return to the runway. While transmitting a radio call to report the engine failure, he noticed the radios had gone blank. The airplane collided with trees and impacted the ground in a nose-down attitude.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR25LA082
- Event ID
- 20250124199593
- Case number
- WPR25LA082
- 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: 284e866b54ed996f5048bfc82bec52b356368de266bf0bf5c4a0784b6d3b3e4b; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:37:19.898Z.