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ANC99LA120 · Cessna 182Q

17 Aug 1999 · Fairbanks, AK, United States

Cessna 182Q · Accident: loss of engine power en route

From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (PANC) to Bradley Sky-Ranch Airport (95Z)

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Event

NTSB case
ANC99LA120
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 182Q

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
N25ZZ
Operator
Vincent J. Moore · private individual
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (PANC), Anchorage, AKTo Bradley Sky-Ranch Airport (95Z), North Pole, AK
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

  • Reason for occurrence undetermined

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The airline transport certificated pilot, and the pilot-rated passenger of the airplane departed on a cross-country personal flight. The airplane was last fueled the day before the accident. Before departure on the accident flight, the pilot said a preflight inspection found no water in the fuel. He estimated he had about 50 gallons of fuel. The distance from the point of departure, to the accident site is about 230 nautical miles. While in a slow descent, the engine began to run rough and lose power. The pilot adjusted the carburetor heat control, and the mixture control, but the engine roughness intensified. About 1,200 feet, the engine quit running. The pilot selected an emergency landing area in soft, tundra-covered terrain. After touchdown, the airplane nosed over. The airplane's nose gear was sheared off, and the airplane received damage to the propeller, left wing, the vertical stabilizer, and the rudder. After the accident, the pilot reported the odor of fuel permeated the air, and he noticed fuel squirting from the fuel tank air vent tube. About two hours after the accident, an Alaska State Trooper arrived to the scene by helicopter to pick up the pilot and passenger. The Trooper reported he did not see or smell the odor of fuel. The airplane wreckage was retrieved by a helicopter company, two days after the accident. During the recovery, the wings and engine were removed from the fuselage. The crew did not notice any fuel in the wing fuel tanks. They did find fuel in the lines between the tanks, the fuel strainer, and an engine fuel line. Three days after the accident, FAA inspectors examined the wreckage. The inspectors noted that no fuel was present in the fuel tanks. The fuel tank screens were unobstructed. A small amount of fuel was found in the fuel strainer. Activation of the engine fuel primer produced fuel from the primer line. The carburetor inlet fuel screen was removed, and a small amount of fuel was found. The screen was clean and unobstructed. The carburetor bowl was about 1/4 full of fuel. Activation of the throttle arm produced fuel from the accelerator pump nozzle. Hand rotation of the engine confirmed valve action, and spark from the spark plug leads.

Probable cause

A loss of engine power for an undetermined reason. A factor was unsuitable terrain for a forced landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ANC99LA120
Event ID
20001212X19407
Case number
ANC99LA120
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: c4b625642cb28bfe4c02a231245818a892d680a40e9ac5869714cccfb85b3ded; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:17:04.634Z.