ERA26LA046 · Cessna 172 N
Melbourne Flight Training Cessna 172 N · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE) to Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA26LA046
- 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 172 N
- 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
- N6124D
- Operator
- Melbourne Flight Training
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE), Okeechobee, FLTo Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB), Melbourne, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 November 17, 2025, about 1900 eastern standard time, a Cessna 172N, N6124D, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Palm Bay, Florida. The private pilot sustained minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight.
The pilot stated that the flight departed with full fuel tanks and after takeoff flew to Okeechobee County Airport (OBE), Okeechobee, Florida, where he performed one touch-and-go landing. He then departed to the north, switched the fuel selector to the right tank for between 5 and 15 minutes to balance the fuel consumed. He then switched the fuel selector to both, performed maneuvers, and then while flying about 2,800 ft mean sea level (msl) initiated a practice emergency descent. Prior to initiating the maneuver, he applied carburetor heat, then reduced the throttle to idle, and banked 45° to the left while descending at 120 knots. Upon reaching 1,500 ft msl, he added full power, but the engine rpm only increased from 800 to 1,100 and he heard the engine sputtering. The pilot pitched the airplane for an airspeed of 65 knots, verified that the mixture was full rich and the carburetor heat was on. He also checked the magnetos and tried to restart the engine but was unsuccessful. The pilot performed a forced landing to a road and after touchdown maneuvered the airplane to the right to avoid a car. During the landing roll the right wing collided with a traffic sign. The airplane veered to the right and came to rest in a ditch with the fuselage elevated in a nearly vertical position. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage.
The wreckage was retained for examination to be performed following recovery.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA26LA046
- Event ID
- 20251118202022
- Case number
- ERA26LA046
- 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 2025-11-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 859c3eb6c55162fce74d0706b2a19de57220dfe753f17436cbbce4db187119a1; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:33:17.419Z.