ANC99LA033 · Cessna 180G
Cessna 180G · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA033
- 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
- Completed
- 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 180G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N4721U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial pilot pushed the airplane out of a hanger and sumped the wing fuel tanks. The airplane remained outside throughout the day while the ambient temperature warmed. No further sumping of the wing tanks was conducted. After departure, the pilot reduced the engine power to level the airplane at the airport traffic pattern altitude. The engine began to run rough, and the pilot began an emergency landing approach to a snow-covered airstrip located near the approach end of an asphalt runway. The engine roughness diminished, and the pilot was cleared to land on the larger asphalt runway. The engine then quit. The airplane touched down in an area of snow between the end of the small airstrip and the beginning of the asphalt runway. The airplane nosed over, and received damage to the vertical stabilizer, the rudder, and the left wing lift strut. An examination of the airplane revealed a wrinkle in the left wing fuel bladder, and 3 ounces of water in the gascolator.
Probable cause
Water contamination of the fuel supply, and the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection to ensure all water was removed from the fuel supply. Factors in the accident were a wrinkle in the wing fuel tank bladder, and snow covered terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA033
- Event ID
- 20001205X00249
- Case number
- ANC99LA033
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: 37e113c460a0baec88fd5ac82fda26441578d54b98c0139168ff56261ee8f438; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:41:28.376Z.