LAX97LA080 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL) to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA080
- 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 182P
- 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
- N9003M
- Operator
- Torger James Totusek
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL)To Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CA
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel system › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Fullerton, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to both pilots, following receipt of their departure release and takeoff clearance, the aircraft took off and climbed to approximately 500 feet agl when the engine smoothly lost power. The engine power returned briefly, dropped off, surged, and then quit altogether. The pilot flying the aircraft attempted to return to the runway, but had insufficient altitude and collided with a fence at the approach end of runway 24. That pilot reported that a preflight had been conducted per the POH and that no abnormalities were found. The aircraft was examined by an FAA airworthiness inspector who reported finding the gascolator bowl half full of water and the carburetor bowl completely full of water. No water was found in either fuel tank when the sump drains were checked. The engine was then started and run for a 10-minute period with no abnormalities noted. Additionally, the FAA inspector found that the left tank fuel cap O-ring was deteriorated, with rust and corrosion present below the level of the O-ring. The aircraft is parked outside on the ramp. Heavy periods of rainfall occurred during the week prior to the accident flight. An annual inspection was completed on the aircraft 1 month and 3 flight hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
Fuel system water contamination due to the failure of both pilots to purge all water from the fuel system prior to departure. Contributing factors were: failure of the mechanic conducting the recent annual inspection to identify and replace a deteriorated fuel cap O-ring.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA080
- Event ID
- 20001208X07198
- Case number
- LAX97LA080
- 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: 8abd4cfa0fc3b3ed323957ad6d1367be602954a3437f1e440f2843568acbb573; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:33:34.101Z.