CHI95LA223 · Cessna 182C
Cessna 182C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Cook Airfield (K50) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA223
- 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 182C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N8779T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cook Airfield (K50), KSTo 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Powerplant controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT AFTER THE AIRPLANE REACHED AN ALTITUDE OF 10,500 FEET MSL, THE SKYDIVERS EXITED THE AIRPLANE. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE THEN BEGAN A WINGS-LEVEL, HIGH-RATE DESCENT TO STAY CLEAR OF THE DROP ZONE. THE MIXTURE WAS AT FULL RICH AND THE CARBURETOR HEAT WAS APPLIED AS HE MAINTAINED 150 TO 160 KNOTS INDICATED AIRSPEED. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, THE POWER WAS SET AT 21 TO 22 INCHES OF MANIFOLD PRESSURE AND THE PROPELLER WAS AT 2200 TO 2300 RPM. AT APPROXIMATELY 6,000 FEET MSL, THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE SURGED AND BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH. THE PILOT DECIDED TO MAKE A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD AFTER HE REALIZED THAT THE AIRPLANE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO REACH THE AIRPORT. WHILE LANDING, THE AIRPLANE'S NOSE WHEEL STRUCK A BERM AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER. AFTER THE ACCIDENT, THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE WAS SUCCESSFULLY STARTED AND RUN. THE ENGINE OPERATED NORMALLY WITH NO OBSERVED MECHANICAL ANOMALIES. THE AIRPLANE OPERATOR'S HANDBOOK STATED THAT APPLICATION OF FULL CARBURETOR HEAT MAY ENRICHEN THE MIXTURE TO THE POINT OF ENGINE ROUGHNESS.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper use of the powerplant controls, which resulted in a rough running engine and partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA223
- Event ID
- 20001207X03898
- Case number
- CHI95LA223
- 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: f3064ad96b4976bb5ae7b56d32539b0e29f128afa2f009124eea9bc74b27fdc8; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:36:40.217Z.