CHI83LA196 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From 3HM · LAFAYETT, IN to Warsaw, IN
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI83LA196
- 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 A185F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- 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
- N533H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3HM · LAFAYETT, INTo Warsaw, 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Clearance, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Logansport, IN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT HAD RECENTLY PURCHASED THE AMPHIBIOUS ACFT, HAD RECEIVED 6.7 HRS DUAL INSTRUCTION & WAS INDORSED FOR SOLO FLT. DURING A X-COUNTRY FROM ELIZABETHTON, TN, HE LANDED AT RICHMOND, KY & PURCHASED 23. 8 GAL OF FUEL. ON THE NEXT LEG TO LAFAYETTE, IN, HE MADE SOME HDG & ALT CHANGES TO AVOID WX. ALSO ON THAT LEG, HE RECALCULATED HIS FUEL CONSUMPTION & ESTIMATED HE HAD SUFFICIENT FUEL TO CONTINUE TO WARSAW, IN. AT LAFAYETTE, HE MADE A MINOR REPAIR, THEN TOOK OFF WITHOUT REFUELING. WHILE EN ROUTE TO WARSAW, THE ENG LOST POWER. THE PLT RESTARTED IT, BUT IT RAN ONLY 2 TO 3 SEC, THEN WOULD NOT RESTART. HE BEGAN AN EMERGENCY, WHEELS-UP LANDING IN A WHEAT FIELD, BUT SAW A POWER LINE & DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH SPEEDTO FLY OVER IT. WHILE FLYING UNDER THE WIRES, THE FLOATS HITA BANK & THE PLANE CRASHED. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL TANKS. GASKET MATERIAL WAS FOUND IN A FUEL SCREEN, BUT LATER, THE ENG WAS RUN WITH THE MATERIAL IN THE SCREEN & IT RAN NORMALLY. APRX 145 GAL OF FUEL HAD BEEN USED IN 8.2 HRS OF FLT, WHICH INCLUDED MANY LANDINGS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI83LA196
- Event ID
- 20001214X42902
- Case number
- CHI83LA196
- 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 1983-05-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e0b4e912f1057ae99903bd4a1c439b97b4c8a996ff50e9e8990d62f048ac1dc5; retrieved 2026-09-22T02:42:04.212Z.