LAX94FA006 · Cessna 182M
Cessna 182M · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA006
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N91849
- Operator
- Paul P. Shurko · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NVTo 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 · 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor float › Separation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and his wife had traveled in their Cessna 182 from the east coast to the west coast on a vacation. About an hour into a return flight leg, the pilot experienced a total loss of engine power over a remote area of northern Arizona. The pilot attempted an emergency landing on a cattle ranch. Ranch personnel stated that the engine was running erratically. The airplane collided with a telephone wire and a berm, which obscured a natural wash. The nose gear was sheared off, the airplane went inverted, and impacted the far side of the wash. The engine was shipped to the manufacturer. After minor repairs, the engine was started and shut down after fuel was observed running out of the carburetor throat. Internal examination of the carburetor revealed that the two screws that hold the float and needle valve in position had backed out. The carburetor was disassembled and the float replaced in compliance with a service bulletin 250 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
the separation of the carburetor float and needle valve from the upper half of the carburetor bowl, due to improper installation of the float kit.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA006
- Event ID
- 20001211X13579
- Case number
- LAX94FA006
- 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: 0769b62780c982e602456fecef475f34a6e97f7678d97a655d4f3da8f1c853ba; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:21:36.317Z.