NYC01LA176 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Newark Heath Airport (VTA) to Port Meadville Airport (GKJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA176
- 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
- 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 182
- 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
- N2815R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Heath Airport (VTA), Newark, OHTo Port Meadville Airport (GKJ), Meadville, PA
- 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 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 management, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was refueled, and then departed on an aerial photography flight. Within 10 minutes, the airplane had reached the target area. The pilot slowed the airplane to 60 knots, and selected the carburetor heat to "ON," but did not lean the mixture. The pilot then spent about 5 hours maneuvering and taking photographs. The pilot configured the airplane for "normal" cruise and proceeded towards his planned destination. About 1 hour later and while operating approximately 1,000 feet agl, the pilot experienced a sudden loss of engine power. While maneuvering for a field, the pilot moved the fuel selector from "LEFT" to "BOTH" to "LEFT," and then back to "BOTH," the engine did not regain power. He did not select the right tank. The airplane touched down, impacted some trees, and came to rest upright and level. Examination of the left and right fuel tanks by an FAA inspector revealed that the left tank was intact and empty. The right was also intact, and had approximately 1 inch of fuel in it. The left fuel gauge indicated 1/16 of a tank, and the right indicated empty.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to adequately manage the available fuel, which resulted in fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA176
- Event ID
- 20010724X01495
- Case number
- NYC01LA176
- 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: 437b79e185b56fded1f4a22324b5867c67d4a01d8e259c36805c90d1d6ae2e0f; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:46:05.013Z.