DEN89LA102 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG) to E80 · Belen, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA102
- 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
- N1672M
- Operator
- Henry E. Bielinski · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG), Albuquerque, NMTo E80 · Belen, NM
- 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 · 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 (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 exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE THE FLT, THE PLT PREFLIGHTED THE ACFT & DRAINED THE WING SUMPS. HE DID NOT NOTICE ANY WATER OR OTHER CONTAMINANTS IN THE FUEL. HE DID NOT VISUALLY CHECK THE TANK CAPS OR FUEL LEVEL, BUT RELIED ON THE FUEL GAGES, WHICH HE BELIEVED WERE ACCURATE. HE KNEW THE LEFT TANK WAS NEAR EMPTY & ESTIMATED THERE WAS 35 GAL REMAINING IN THE RGT TANK. ABOUT 10 MIN AFTER TAKING OFF ON A FLT FROM ALBUQUERQUE TO BELEN, NM, THE ENG LOST POWER & WOULD NOT RESTART. THE PLT RPRTD THAT DURING AN EMERGENCY LANDING, HE BEGAN HIS FLARE TOO LOW, THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN 'TOO FLAT' & THEN THE NOSE WHEEL HIT A MOUND & THE ACFT NOSED OVER. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN EITHER TANK, THOUGH FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL LINES & GASCOLATOR. THE ENGINE WAS OPERATIONALLY CHECKED & IT RAN SMOOTHLY TO 2100 RPM.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL EXAUSTION FROM AN INADEQUATE SUPPLY OF FUEL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: FALSE FUEL QUANTITY INDICATION, HARD LANDING BY THE PILOT, AND UNEVEN TERRAIN CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA102
- Event ID
- 20001213X28077
- Case number
- DEN89LA102
- 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: c3539760b667507f13bf0234df0b00cd10fad62f4eeca21aadee1d6faaad59ea; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:15:20.530Z.