IAD96LA154 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) to Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport (TOL)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD96LA154
- 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
- N6336A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, MDTo Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport (TOL), Toledo, OH
- 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 · cruise
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During flight, the engine lost power. The pilot stated that his efforts to restart the engine using the emergency procedures were unsuccessful. He stated that the closest airport was about 10 miles away, but due to his altitude of 4000 feet msl, he was unable to make a landing at the airport. A forced landing was made in a corn field, and the airplane was damaged during landing. The pilot reported that he had topped off the fuel tanks, and his usable fuel was 55 gallons. According to the Cessna Owner's Manual, at an altitude of 2500 feet and a power setting of 21 inches and 2450 rpm, the endurance would have been 4.3 hours with a fuel burn rate of 12.7 gallons per hour; at 5000 feet and a power setting of 21 inches and 2450 rpm, the endurance would be 4.2 hours with a fuel burn rate of 13.0 gallons per hour. According to FAA personnel, the pilot reported that he used a power setting of 21 inches and 2200 rpm. The pilot reported that he had departed at 0710 EDT. The accident occurred at 1136 EDT. Examination of the airplane after the accident revealed that the right fuel tank was empty, the left tank had one inch of fuel, and the gascolator was empty. The fuel selector valve was found positioned to the right fuel tank.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper inflight planning/decision, which resulted in fuel exhaustion during cruise flight and subsequent loss of engine power. A related factor was the lack of suitable terrain for an emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD96LA154
- Event ID
- 20001208X06762
- Case number
- IAD96LA154
- 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: 05f414f92d5f36361e223dcd29bde09467b15ed435c60aa0a9457e7101dee131; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:03:34.885Z.