MIA01FA077 · Cessna 182J
Cessna 182J · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Witham Field (KSUA) to Witham Field (KSUA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA01FA077
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 182J
- 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
- N979ND
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Witham Field (KSUA), Stuart, FLTo Witham Field (KSUA), Stuart, FL
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The fuel tanks were filled 2 days before the accident and the airplane had been operated for approximately 2.1 hours since fueling before the accident pilot flew the airplane. The accident pilot flew the airplane to another airport where 1 of the 2 passengers on board deplaned; the flight duration was approximately 20-30 minutes and was uneventful according to the passenger who deplaned. The pilot flew the accident airplane to the original departure airport where he performed 1 touch-and-go landing followed by a second touch-and-go landing. During the initial climb after the second touch-and-go landing, the pilot advised the controller that he was landing on a golf course and the engine had quit. The airplane clipped the top of a tree on a fairway of the golf course, then touched down on the fairway. During the landing roll the airplane collided with a stand of palm trees resulting in a postcrash fire. Examination of the flight controls revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. The engine was placed on a test stand with the slightly impact damaged propeller and impact damaged carburetor; the engine was found to operate normally. The carburetor had been previously converted from one part number to another; an economizer restrictor was installed that was not specified to be installed. The carburetor was flow tested which revealed that the carburetor flowed within limits at 1 test point and an average of 6.2 pounds per hour greater than specified at the remaining four test points. Calculations indicated that the engine/propeller rpm at touchdown on the fairway was 872. Postaccident testing of fuel from the facility that fueled the airplane last revealed the fuel was within specification.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to undetermined reasons resulting in the forced landing. A factor in the accident was the unsuitable terrain encountered during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA01FA077
- Event ID
- 20010222X00490
- Case number
- MIA01FA077
- 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, coordinates. 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: 981df282adbeae107295cecce42b7b928c564e3f6793a295a55e78338943ee53; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:39:51.229Z.