ATL89LA073 · Cessna 182P
Kentucky Flying Service Cessna 182P · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From I77 · Cincinnati, OH to 4I8 · Indianapolis, IN
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89LA073
- 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
- N21531
- Operator
- Kentucky Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From I77 · Cincinnati, OHTo 4I8 · Indianapolis, IN
- 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
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE LOST 50% POWER JUST AFTER TAKEOFF. THE PLT APPLIED FULL CARB HEAT FOR ABOUT 3 MINUTES, THEN MOVED THE CARB HEAT CONTROL TO THE HALF-ON POSITION. THE AIRPLANE REMAINED AIRBORNE FOR SEVERAL MORE MINUTES AS HE ATTEMPTED TO LOCATE A SUITABLE LDG AREA. THE PLT OBSERVED THAT THE ENGINE MANIFOLD PRESSURE WOULD NOT EXCEED 23 INCHES EVEN WITH FULL THROTTLE. THE ENGINE EVENTUALLY LOST ALL POWER AND A FORCED LDG WAS MADE IN A SOFT FIELD. THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER DURING THE LDG. AFTER THE AIRPLANE WAS RECOVERED FROM THE CRASH SITE, AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO RUN THE ENGINE; IT RAN ROUGH WHEN FIRST STARTED, THEN SMOOTHED OUT AND DEVELOPED PWR. THE ENGINE DEVELOPED NEAR-MAXIMUM RATED RPM, AND NO PROBLEMS WERE NOTED. EXAMINATION OF CARBURETOR ICING PROBABILITY CURVE REVEALED THAT REPORTED WX CONDITIONS WERE FAVORABLE FOR LIGHT ICING AT GLIDE OR CRUISE PWR.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER USE OF THE CARBURETOR HEAT CONTROL WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE CONDITIONS CONDUCIVE TO CARBURETOR ICE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89LA073
- Event ID
- 20001213X27534
- Case number
- ATL89LA073
- 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: 493d3a86d1f77ee811504bc1cee3f48aa6c718e175fb533ac3fa4dee8cb53ea6; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:59:21.861Z.