FTW98LA115 · Cessna 182E
Cessna 182E · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Steamboat Springs Bob Adams Field (SBS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA115
- 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 182E
- 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
- N2804Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Steamboat Springs Bob Adams Field (SBS)To not recorded
- 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 · climb to 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)
- 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 › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, the engine lost power. The pilot reversed course and applied carburetor heat. With little altitude remaining and failing to restore engine power, the pilot made a forced landing in a snow field and the airplane nosed over. During the preflight inspection, the pilot found no water or contaminants in the fuel sumps. No irregularities were noted during the pretakeoff engine run. Full power was attained during the takeoff roll, and performance was typical for the conditions. The pilot told an FAA inspector that ice may have formed in the carburetor. At the time of the accident, the temperature at Hayden, Colorado, located 18 miles west of the accident site, was 25 degrees F., and the dew point 12 degrees F. According to the Icing Probability Chart, these conditions are not conducive to carburetor icing. The engine was later functionally tested. During the test, the temperature was 24 degrees F., and the dew point was 20 degrees F. The engine operated satisfactorily. After the engine was shut down, thick frost was noted on the carburetor housing. According to the Icing Probability Chart, these conditions are conducive to carburetor icing at cruise power and during a glide.
Probable cause
The total nonmechanical power loss due to the formation of carburetor ice. A factor was the deep snow covered field on which the forced landing was made.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA115
- Event ID
- 20001211X09443
- Case number
- FTW98LA115
- 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: 19197ae74e5386cc1bca29cfd6d9f420759e77ed55f99512379e89151827f6b2; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:04:22.418Z.