SEA96LA160 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA160
- 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 182A
- 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
- N9975B
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after parachutists (skydivers) jumped from 13,000 feet, he returned to the airport. While on base leg for landing, two radio-controlled model airplanes were observed flying near the approach end of the runway. The model airplanes swung wide and blocked the first 2,000 feet of the approach end of the runway; thus, moving the available touchdown zone closer to the departure end of the runway. The pilot continued the approach until his airplane was over the last 1/3 of the runway before he initiated a go-around. During the go-around, the engine lost power, and the pilot made a forced landing. The airplane touched down at the departure end of the runway, then it ran off the end and went into a ditch. Postaccident examination revealed no mechanical failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
loss of engine power for undetermined reason(s). Factors relating to the accident were: the pilot's need to maneuvering to avoid obstructions near the approach end of the runway, and a ditch in the emergency landing area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA160
- Event ID
- 20001208X06127
- Case number
- SEA96LA160
- 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 1996-06-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 36f7e017e53885e8b2faa8af46f5c358ccdced4a7c4ea655cc4ab99ba7353e4d; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:10:50.701Z.