NYC84LA136 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Athens Ben Epps Airport (AHN) to Cape May County Airport (WWD)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC84LA136
- 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
- N3859C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Athens Ben Epps Airport (AHN), Athens, GATo Cape May County Airport (WWD), Wildwood, NJ
- 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 final
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Performance data, inattentive
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT MADE A FORCED LANDING ABOUT 1 MILE SW OF AN ADDED STOPPING POINT. THE PLT NOTED A LOWER THAN PLANNED GS AND THOUGHT HE SHOULD ADD A STOP FOR FUEL. DURING THE FLT HE HAD ENCOUNTERED ICING AND BECAUSE OF CLIMBS AND DESCENTS TO AVOID WX FOR ABOUT AN HOUR AND A HALF, THE CARBURETOR HEAT WAS USED WHICH ENRICHED THE MIXTURE. AFTER THE ACCIDENT THE ACFT WAS FOUND TO CONTAIN ABOUT 3 GALLONS OF FUEL. TWO GALLONS IN THE LEFT TANK AND 0NE GALLON IN THE RIGHT TANK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC84LA136
- Event ID
- 20001214X39400
- Case number
- NYC84LA136
- 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: 322d202b94724d916e1e2bcf0a2673ccfa6e796bb41c807139f685840a02a907; retrieved 2026-09-23T20:38:27.055Z.