FTW98LA026 · Cessna 182P
Skyline Aviation Cessna 182P · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
From AHX · Houston, TX to AHX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA026
- 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
- N10DG
- Operator
- Skyline Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AHX · Houston, TXTo AHX
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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, carburetor float › Disconnected
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The CFI was monitoring the private pilot during practice of unusual attitude recovery maneuvers. During the set up for a maneuver, a power reduction was made from climb power to nearly idle. As the throttle was added to full power, the engine lost power and did not respond. Several attempts to restart the engine were unsuccessful. The instructor pilot monitored the descent as the private pilot tried to set up for a forced landing to a road. When the intended landing point was overshot, the CFI took control of the airplane, maneuvered between several trees, and set the aircraft down hard in a pasture. Disassembly of the carburetor revealed that the float attachment bracket was found detached and separated from the carburetor bowl assembly. Aircraft records showed that a carburetor float kit had been installed on May 7, 1996. Tap screws were used to attach the float attachment brackets to the carburetor bowl, thus stripping out the holes for the attachment brackets. Manufacturer's installation instructions outlined that set screws should have been used on the attachment brackets. Also, what appeared to be glue residue was found on the threads of the tap screws.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power resulting from a disconnected carburetor float due to improper maintenance. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA026
- Event ID
- 20001208X09019
- Case number
- FTW98LA026
- 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: 0c4abcc5ccba0ecf0506265f7cfcfc81615be9f4dd05135212e1374bf67d6619; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:18:08.663Z.