ERA26LA012 · Cessna 172 G
Aero Science International Cessna 172 G · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Augusta Regional At Bush Field (AGS)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA26LA012
- 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 172 G
- 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
- N4390L
- Operator
- Aero Science International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Augusta Regional At Bush Field (AGS), Augusta, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 59 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 October 10, 2025, about 2015 eastern daylight time, a Cessna 172G, N4390L, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Sandersville, Geogia. The pilot was not injured and the passenger sustained minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 positioning flight. According to the pilot, maintenance had just been completed on the airplane, and the purpose of this flight was to take it back to the airport where the airplane was based. He performed a normal preflight inspection of the airplane and stated that the engine run-up was normal. The pilot also confirmed that he had used a measuring stick to check the fuel quantity. During the departure, he reported that the airplane left the ground, but about 250 ft above ground level, the engine rpm began to drop. The pilot attempted to quickly troubleshoot by “pumping” the throttle lever and verifying the fuel selector position. The airplane was unable to maintain altitude and impacted the tops of trees. A postaccident examination of the wreckage by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed that the wing fuel tanks contained fluid that smelled and appeared visually consistent with automotive fuel. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings, fuselage, and empennage. The airplane contained avionics that were capable of recording airframe and engine data. These were retained for further examination and data download. The wreckage was retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA26LA012
- Event ID
- 20251014201843
- Case number
- ERA26LA012
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2025-10-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ce3e932f9875269db96a85c443c6ec77b9feb9c6e5537ae304f0420c0321d2b8; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:27:48.791Z.