BFO93FA018 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Minute Man Air Field (6B6) to Minute Man Air Field (6B6)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93FA018
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N52785
- Operator
- John A Clinton · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minute Man Air Field (6B6)To Minute Man Air Field (6B6)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 contamination; Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Stow, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THIS WAS THE FIRST FLIGHT OF THE DAY, AND THE AIRPLANE WAS LAST REFUELED AT MINUTE MAN AIRPORT IN NOVEMBER. ACCORDING TO AIRCRAFT RECORDS, THE AIRPLANE WAS INACTIVE FOR TWO MONTHS. THERE WERE NO WITNESSES TO THE PREFLIGHT; HOWEVER, THE AIRCRAFT WAS VIEWED BY TWO OTHER PILOTS TO DEPART FROM RUNWAY 3. AT ABOUT 100 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, THE ENGINE SOUNDS WERE INTERMITTENT. THE WITNESSES REPORTED THAT DURING THE CLIMB, BLACK SMOKE WAS COMING FROM THE AIRCRAFT EXHAUST. A SECOND WITNESS, WHO SAW THE CRASH, STATED THAT THE PILOT TRIED TO MAKE A LEFT TURN, BUT THE AIRPLANE FELL TO THE GROUND IN A NEAR VERTICAL POSITION. INSPECTION OF THE FUEL SYSTEM REVEALED ABOUT ONE QUARTER OF THE FUEL CONTENTS OF THE FUEL CONTROL VALVE WAS WATER. BOTH FUEL CAPS WERE SECURED TO THEIR RESPECTIVE TANKS, AND WHEN SPRAYED WITH WATER, NO LEAKAGE PAST THE CAPS INTO THE TANKS WAS NOTED. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
AN INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT BY THE PILOT, WHICH ALLOWED WATER CONTAMINATION IN THE FUEL AND SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF ENGINE POWER; AND FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED, WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93FA018
- Event ID
- 20001211X11653
- Case number
- BFO93FA018
- 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: bf87ebed3bd90b1ecd99e91cd592c59ec4760576ce6775cc910c39a9dd4c3922; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:44:00.909Z.