LAX97LA232 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX) to Whiteman Airport (WHP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA232
- 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
- N2011G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CATo Whiteman Airport (WHP), PACOIMA, 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
- 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 (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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that during the preflight inspection a calibrated instrument was used to dip the tanks; the aircraft had approximately 7 gallons in the right tank, and 9 gallons in the left tank. The pilot did not report the nature of the calibrated instrument, nor how it was calibrated to the aircraft fuel system. On takeoff the fuel selector valve was set to the left tank and shortly after takeoff he switched it to the right tank. He ran the right tank dry and when the engine quit, he switched to the left tank and began a circling descent to the airport. The engine ran approximately 5 more minutes and then lost power again. Attempts to restart the engine were unsuccessful. The pilot reported that prior to the accident the aircraft was running normally and no deficiencies were noted. The pilot reported to an FAA inspector that he had technically ran out of fuel. The inspector examined the aircraft on scene the day of the accident and reported that the fuel system appeared to be intact and no fuel was present in either of the tanks. According to the inspector no other mechanical anomalies were noted with the aircraft.
Probable cause
Fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's inadequate preflight planning/inspection and his failure to ensure that adequate fuel was onboard prior to departure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA232
- Event ID
- 20001208X08421
- Case number
- LAX97LA232
- 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: 5f720bd092b6960689dfb4c5da6069e2e12b7a2b0123277aeb386a32fad99081; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:23:33.392Z.