The National Transportation Safety Board cited the “partial loss of engine power” that caused a plane to crash in the backyard of a town of Harmony residence in August 2022.

The crash seriously injured both of the Cessna’s occupants and caused significant damage to the plane itself.

Details of the late-night crash are outlined in an eight-page final report released earlier this month by the NTSB.

Two men, a 63-year-old pilot and 25-year-old flight instructor, were taking part in a “night cross-country” flight between Lake County Executive Airport in Willoughby, Ohio, and Chautauqua

County-Jamestown Airport in the town of Ellicott when the crash occurred.

According to the report, the single-engine Cessna had just performed a “touch-and-go” maneuver in Jamestown and was headed back to Ohio when the engine began to sputter.

“The pilot receiving instruction pitched the airplane for the best glide speed and circled back toward (the Jamestown airport) while attempting to restore engine power,” the NTSB report states.

The pilots were advised of a private airstrip — Goose Creek Aviation in the town of Harmony — located below them; however, due to darkness, the pair could not locate the airstrip.

“As a result, the instructor ‘maintained best glide speed’ and went forward into the trees,” the NTSB report states.

The plane came down at about 11 p.m. in the backyard of a home on Baker Street Extension.

Jamie King told The Post-Journal that night that her husband heard a “loud noise” and woke her up.

“We looked in the backyard (and) saw a man walking in the backyard,” King said Oct. 11, 2022. “He told us his plane crashed and asked to call 911.”

King shared photos of her backyard that showed the plane heavily damaged in a wooded area. She said it landed about 60 feet from her home.

A review of the plane after the crash found that its single-drive dual magneto — used to provide pulses of electricity that are high enough to fire the engine’s spark plugs — would not produce a spark when the engine crankshaft was rotated.

A review of the plane’s maintenance logbook showed no engine overhaul information or time-in service information for the magneto.

“The operator thought that the engine had been overhauled before purchasing the airplane in 2016,” the report states. “However, they had no record of the overhaul.”

It further states, “The weather conditions about the time of the accident were conductive to carburetor icing at cruise and glide engine power settings, and while the instructor applied carburetor heat with no engine power improvement after the engine had begun to falter, it is possible that the engine might not have been developing sufficient heat by that point to deice an accumulation of ice in the carburetor. Thus, it could not be determined whether the anomalous operation of the magneto’s points that was observed during the post-accident examination, the possible formation of carburetor ice, or a combination of both these factors ultimately resulted in the partial loss of engine power during the accident flight.”