DEN88LA160 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE) to 1V5 · Boulder, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88LA160
- 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 180
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N2815A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, COTo 1V5 · Boulder, CO
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 (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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PLT, HE WAS RETURNING TO BOULDER AFTER MAKING A FLT TO ASPEN. HE SAID HE STARTED THE MORNING FLT WITH 2/3 FUEL LOAD (ABOUT 40 GALLONS) BUT DIDN'T KNOW HOW MUCH FLT TIME HE ACCUMULATED DURING THE DAY. DURING HIS VFR APPROACH TO THE BOULDER AIRPORT HE HAD A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. HE NOTICED THE LEFT FUEL TANK INDICATED EMPTY, AND SWITCHED FUEL TANKS, BUT THE ENGINE QUIT. HE STATED THAT HE WAS UNABLE TO RESTART THE ENGINE AND WAS FORCED TO PUT THE ACFT DOWN IN AN OPEN FIELD WHERE IT RAN INTO A DITCH. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE RIGHT FUEL TANK HAD FUEL IN IT AND THE LEFT TANK WAS EMPTY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88LA160
- Event ID
- 20001213X26217
- Case number
- DEN88LA160
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-07-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 60fd663f3d603a4c238801263d63e498cb3d8efe98cc477c05095c00c70b3ba0; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:06:44.353Z.