SEA93LA090 · Cessna 182M
Cessna 182M · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93LA090
- 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 182M
- 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
- N71654
- Operator
- Calderwood; Mcmullin; Smith
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO), Missoula, MTTo 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
- 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
- Partial 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
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER ABOUT 15 MIN OF FLIGHT, THE PILOT DESCENDED FROM HIS CRUISE ALTITUDE OF 6,000 FT MSL TO 4,600 FT MSL PRIOR TO ENTERING THE TRAFFIC PATTERN. HE EXECUTED A 360 FOR SPACING, ENTERED DOWNWIND, AND PERFORMED HIS PRE-LANDING CHECKLIST. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, HE DID NOT APPLY CARBURETOR HEAT UNTIL HE WAS ESTABLISHED ON FINAL AND HAD SELECTED FULL FLAPS, REDUCED POWER TO 15 IN MP, AND ADVANCED THE PROPELLER FULL FORWARD. WHEN THE CARBURETOR HEAT WAS SUPPLIED, THE ENGINE EXPERIENCED A 'SEVERE/SIGNIFICANT' POWER LOSS. THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN HARD IN SOFT TERRAIN SHORT OF THE RUNWAY AND FLIPPED OVER. THE OWNERS MANUAL 'LET-DOWN' CHECKLIST CALLS FOR CARBURETOR HEAT TO BE APPLIED 'IF ICING CONDITIONS EXIST.' IN THE EXISTING WEATHER CONDITIONS, SEVERE CARBURETOR ICING COULD OCCUR AT GLIDE POWER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER USE OF CARBURETOR HEAT. A FACTOR WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE CARBURETOR ICING CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93LA090
- Event ID
- 20001211X12247
- Case number
- SEA93LA090
- 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 1993-04-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 10e61d17f944f3acb1557101acac4cc6a3dc006317af7aeec9dbb0d951a20a37; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:59:53.813Z.