WPR26LA285 · Cessna 172 M
Blitz Aviation Cessna 172 M · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD) to Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA285
- 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 M
- 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
- N9650V
- Operator
- Blitz Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UTTo Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1974)
- 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 · descent
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On July?30,?2026, at 2356?mountain daylight time, a Cessna?172M airplane, N9650V, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Layton, Utah. The flight instructor was seriously injured, and the private pilot sustained minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title?14 Code of Federal Regulations Part?91 instructional flight.
The flight instructor reported that he and the private pilot were conducting a long distance night cross country instructional flight. As they were descending to land near the completion of the flight, the engine sputtered and then lost all power. The flight instructor configured the airplane for best glide performance. While the flight instructor attempted to restart the engine, the private pilot completed checklist items, radioed air traffic control and declared an emergency. Both pilots reported that on about three or four occasions, the engine restarted and ran rough briefly, then lost power. The flight instructor determined the airplane had sufficient altitude and performance to glide to a runway landing at Hill Air Force Base (HIF), which was directly ahead. He reported that a gust of wind from a canyon hit the airplane from the right, resulting in an unexpected altitude loss. The flight instructor then determined the airplane would no longer reach the planned runway and performed a forced landing in a dark area near a roadway south of the airport. The airplane landed hard, nosed over and came to rest inverted in an intersection, sustaining substantial damage to the wings and fuselage.
A mobile phone video, recorded by a resident who lives near the accident location, showed the airplane descending low over a residential neighborhood. In the video, the engine produced a popping sound and was running sporadically.
A witness who was driving her vehicle on the roadway near the accident intersection reported that she observed something passing above. The witness then heard a loud crashing sound and observed an airplane overturned alongside the intersection. She noted that she did not hear sound coming from the airplane prior to the accident.
First responders reported seeing fuel pouring from the airplane wreckage, which continued to leak from the left wing for up to two hours after the crash.
The wreckage was transported to a secure facility and retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA285
- Event ID
- 20260803203508
- Case number
- WPR26LA285
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2026-07-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3a727a9ab4e27c52305d3d7ad94a4f334cead6513786ce45a0870cb1e6d39729; retrieved 2026-09-17T05:22:23.375Z.