NYC00LA056 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From PCW to Whalen Heliport (OH30)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA056
- 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 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
- N1545M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PCWTo Whalen Heliport (OH30), PUT-IN-BAY, OH
- 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
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Ice
- Fuel system › Blocked(partial)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had been flown almost daily, for short flights. Four days before the accident, it was used for unusual attitude training. The accident occurred on the next flight. After a normal engine runup, and takeoff, the engine lost power at the departure end of the runway, at 300-400 feet agl. The pilot turned the STOL-equipped airplane back toward the field, but it struck trees, then impacted terrain near the approach end of the runway. Four propeller strikes were found in the frozen ground, and both blades were bent backwards at the hub. Both blades also exhibited leading edge nicks and chordwise scratching. The engine mixture control was found full forward, the throttle was 1 inch from full forward, the carburetor heat control was in the full-in, 'cold' position, and the fuel selector lever was on 'both'. The presence of fuel, engine cylinder compression, and crankshaft continuity were confirmed. Six days after the accident, an FAA inspector found that fuel drained from fuel sump filter had minor amounts of ice crystals floating in it. Air temperature at the time of the accident was about 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
Probable cause
Loss of engine power caused by ice crystal blockage of the fuel system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA056
- Event ID
- 20001212X20313
- Case number
- NYC00LA056
- 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: 78cfbae65a3c21786369ef7591d862cb3a169e5a423cd9d0e215a73f79b1c80d; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:44:36.779Z.