SEA90LA159 · Cessna 182H
Cessna 182H · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From an unrecorded airport to Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA90LA159
- 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 182H
- 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
- N2473X
- Operator
- Porter, David R. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW), Tacoma, WA
- 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 · climb to 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)
- 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, oil › Exhaustion
- Lubricating system, oil gasket › Incorrect
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, service of aircraft/equipment, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, THE ENGINE LOST PARTIAL POWER AND THE PILOT NOTED THAT OIL PRESSURE HAD DROPPED TO O. THE PILOT TURNED AROUND TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT; HOWEVER, EN ROUTE, THE ENGINE LOST POWER AND A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE IN A WHEAT FIELD. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER. DURING THE POST CRASH INSPECTION, IT WAS FOUND THAT THE OIL GASKET WAS CREASED OR FOLDED OVER APPROXIMATELY HALF WAY AROUND THE OUTER EDGE AND A SMALL NOTCH OF THE RUBBER WAS MISSING FROM THE OUTER EDGE. THE FILTER AND OIL HAD JUST BEEN CHANGED ON THE AIRPLANE AND THIS WAS THE FIRST FLIGHT AFTER THAT MAINTENANCE.
Probable cause
IMPROPER INSTALLATION OF THE OIL FILTER GASKET BY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL RESULTING IN LOSS OF ENGINE OIL AND SEIZURE OF THE ENGINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA90LA159
- Event ID
- 20001212X24138
- Case number
- SEA90LA159
- 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: 923983f5bf890982297573b654bd8ca2b99f41a8e6c084586b03baea6e8d8be8; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:38:11.258Z.