LAX99LA305 · Cessna 182J
Cessna 182J · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Napa County Airport (APC) to Andy Mc Beth Airport (S51)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA305
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182J
- 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
- N3348F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Napa County Airport (APC), Napa, CATo Andy Mc Beth Airport (S51)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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)
- 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
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot received a weather briefing from FSS the evening before departure and a friend at the destination told him that the area had been free of fog for the last several days. Upon descent to 1,500 feet at the destination, he could not spot the airport due to a fog layer. He decided to divert to his alternate. After turning toward the alternate airport, the engine began to run roughly. The pilot was unable to remedy the power loss by applying carburetor heat, switching fuel tanks, leaning the mixture, and checking the magnetos in the both position. As he turned back toward his original destination airport, the engine continued to run rough and he was unable to arrest the airplane's descent. He was just above the fog layer, saw the runway through the fog, and turned back to the runway. During the turn, he went into the fog and the airplane collided with treetops and lodged in branches. The occupants noticed fire in the floorboard area, exited through the pilot's door, and jumped to the ground. The fuselage was consumed by fire. Witnesses on the ground heard the airplane circle the area twice at a low altitude, but did not hear any change of engine sound. The temperature/dew point was in an area of a carburetor icing probability chart annotated, 'serious carburetor icing with cruise or climb power.' The FAA publication, 'Tips on Winter Flying,' recommends that carburetor heat be applied prior to reducing power.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to carburetor icing and the pilot's failure to use carburetor heat in conditions conducive to icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA305
- Event ID
- 20001212X19807
- Case number
- LAX99LA305
- 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: 7783f7e0798935b54b7225bc4b3fd7b1a47cfff23631118da9f50fe639830186; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:23:48.419Z.