MIA97LA127 · Cessna 182B
Cessna 182B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Cross City Airport (CTY) to Tullahoma Regional Airport William Northern Field (THA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA127
- 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 182B
- 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
- N2515G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cross City Airport (CTY), Cross City, FLTo Tullahoma Regional Airport William Northern Field (THA), TN
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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 › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight departed with full fuel tanks and during cruise flight the pilot noted that the fuel gauge needles were bouncing and indicating between empty and 1/4 full. The flight continued then during cruise flight about 5-6 minutes later and 3 hours 6 minutes into the flight, the engine quit. The pilot initiated an emergency descent then while over unsuitable terrain, he landed the airplane in trees. Post crash examination of the fuel tank in the left wing which was separated revealed it contained about 1/4 cup of fuel. The fuel tank in the right wing which was attached was found empty. No fuel stains were noted aft of each fuel cap or aft of each fuel tank sump drain fitting. The estimated time en route was calculated to be 3 hours 13 minutes. The pilot stated that historically the fuel consumption is 12.5 to 13.0 gallons per hour. No determination could be made as to the reason for the excess fuel consumption.
Probable cause
Fuel exhaustion for undetermined reasons and unsuitable terrain encountered during the forced landing. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the pilot to divert to an alternate airport while en route after recognizing that the fuel consumed was greater than the planned amount for the flight duration.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA127
- Event ID
- 20001208X07781
- Case number
- MIA97LA127
- 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 1997-04-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a89ecabd0c42f7305664a846bf81b1d175f4fc6876b2de0249866f7ca6f4b00c; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:11:09.428Z.