MIA97LA203 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Houma Terrebonne Airport (HUM) to 66Y
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA203
- 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 A185F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- 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
- N5054R
- Operator
- Jerry T. Gonsoulin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houma Terrebonne Airport (HUM), Houma, LATo 66Y
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Short field landing/procedure, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he was making a short approach with full flaps, when the airplane started sinking. He added power and the engine quit. The airplane collided with an embankment and nosed over. Examination of the fuel tanks revealed about 2 quarts of fuel in the left tank and about 2 gallons of fuel in the right tank. The fuel selector valve was on the left fuel tank. Examination of the fuel and ignition system and fuel injection components was uneventful.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper short field landing procedure and use of full flaps prior to being assured of reaching the proper touchdown point, resulting in an in-flight collision with an embankment, and subsequent nose over. Contributing to the accident was a total loss of engine power due to improper fuel management resulting in fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA203
- Event ID
- 20001208X08460
- Case number
- MIA97LA203
- 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: cbc6c24ad2fbb0d0b19aafa32b9682238e2ae2669cb8dc05f57c2f307a233aae; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:23:45.384Z.