CHI96LA051 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Mount Sterling Montgomery County Airport (IOB) to Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA051
- 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 182
- 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
- N2465Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Sterling Montgomery County Airport (IOB), MT STERLING, KYTo Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI), Cape Girardeau, MO
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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 exhaustion; Tree(s); Pole
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Fluid, fuel › Siphoning
- Fuel system, cap › Loose
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, not verified
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE HAD BEEN TOPPED WITH FUEL AND THAT HE HAD CONFIRMED IT DURING PREFLIGHT. AFTER ABOUT 3 HOURS OF FLYING, THE ENGINE QUIT. A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE TO A ROAD AND THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES AND A POWERLINE POLE DURING THE FLARE. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE 'DIDN'T PUT MUCH STOCK IN THE FUEL GAUGES.' ALTHOUGH THE FUEL GAUGES WERE GOING DOWN, HE RELIED ON TIME AND DISTANCE FOR HIS FUEL CALCULATIONS. THE AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE RECORDS INDICATED THAT THE FUEL CAPS WERE INSPECTED EVERY 12 MONTHS. THE LAST INSPECTION OF THE FUEL CAPS WAS PERFORMED ON 11/28/95. NO FUEL CAPS WERE REPAIRED OR REPLACED. INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THAT THE LEFT AND RIGHT FUEL TANKS HAD NO DRAINABLE FUEL. THE LEFT WING SHOWED SIGNS OF FUEL LEAKING FROM THE FUEL CAP. STAINS WERE FOUND STREAMING FROM THE CAP AND ALONG THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF THE WING FLAP. EXAMINATION OF THE LEFT FUEL TANK FOUND THAT THE FUEL CAP WAS LOOSE AND DID NOT FIT PROPERLY.
Probable cause
fuel exhaustion due to inadequate maintenance performed on the fuel cap by the maintenance personnel, fuel siphoning out of the left fuel cap, and the failure of the pilot to properly monitor his fuel consumption.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA051
- Event ID
- 20001207X04974
- Case number
- CHI96LA051
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-12-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a35cacb86d15d89946a6f8b0d770da14398513180a212f5bd5d2ee3ea3b8554a; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:58:01.769Z.