DEN85LA181 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Spotted Bear USFS Airport (8U4) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN85LA181
- 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 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N2432D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spotted Bear USFS Airport (8U4), SPOTTED BEAR, MTTo not recorded
- 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
- Fuel system, line › Deteriorated
- Fuel system, line › Leak
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT SAID THAT PRIOR TO DEPARTURE THERE WAS AN ESTIMATED 14 GALS OF FUEL ON BOARD. AFTER APRX 30 MINUTES OF FLIGHT THE ENG LOST ALL PWR AND A FORCED LANDING WAS ACCOMPLISHED IN A MOUNTAINOUS CREEK BED. DURING THE LANDING ROLL THE ACFT STRUCK A FEELED TREE AND OVERTURNED. POST-CRASH EXAM OF THE ACFT REVEALED ONLY TRACE AMOUNTS OF FUEL IN THE FUEL TANKS, LINES, CARBURETOR BOWL, AND ACCELERATOR PUMP. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE GASCOLATOR. THE ENG WAS LATER TEST RUN AND OPERATED SATISFACTORILY. THE FUEL LINE BETWEEN THE FIREWALL AND CARBURETOR WAS SAID TO BE A RUBBER VACUUM LINE AND AN UNAPPROVED INSTALLATION. THE LINE WAS SO DETERIORATED AND BRITTLE THAT IT BROKE INTO SEVERAL PIECES WHILE BEING REMOVED FOR EXAMINATION. THE PLT REPORTED HE USED A STOPWATCH TO KEEP TRACK OF THE FUEL SUPPLY BECAUSE THE FUEL GAGES WERE INACCURATE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN85LA181
- Event ID
- 20001214X37091
- Case number
- DEN85LA181
- 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 1985-07-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 611fe1e06a3686257562f524636af1b19251dc62019a3111c6b92b55776a5792; retrieved 2026-09-23T16:56:43.776Z.