CHI98LA156 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From 3IP to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA156
- 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 182
- 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
- N507SD
- Operator
- Charlotte Leach
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3IPTo 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 · 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Terrain condition › Soft
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that as the airplane was descending through 4,000 feet msl it started loosing power. She leveled off, pulled carburetor heat on, and switched fuel tanks. She reported that, 'Upon restart the engine backfired and quit.' She reported that she trimmed the airplane for best glide (80 mph) and flew directly for the airport 2.5 miles away. At .5 miles from the airport she realized she would not make the runway so she decided to land short. She set 10 degrees of flaps and landed in a field. The airplane hit a wooden fence post during landing roll in the muddy field and nosed over. An examination of the engine found the induction system balance tube separated from the intake manifold tube assembly. The induction system balance tube coupling did not line up with the intake manifold. The engine was test run. During the first test run, the induction system balance tube coupling was left disconnected. The engine started but would only run when the throttle was continuously pumped. The balance tube coupling was connected and the engine restarted. The engine operated and did not require continuous pumping of the throttle. The engine was run up to 1,700 RPM. The engine ran smoothly at 1,700 RPM with no missing or backfiring. No other pre-impact mechanical anomalies were noted on the engine.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the separation of the induction system balance tube coupling from the intake manifold tube assembly. A related factor was the soft field.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA156
- Event ID
- 20001211X10015
- Case number
- CHI98LA156
- 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 1998-05-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 45dbd7e819d87dee0e69fe75a8aaabf1903b2404b7e50a1561b53afabf5e805b; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:46:03.067Z.