MIA02LA053 · Cessna 182L
Cessna 182L · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP) to Wellington Aero Club Airport (FD38)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA053
- 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 182L
- 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
- N182JM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP), Pompano, FLTo Wellington Aero Club Airport (FD38), Wellington, 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, improper
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Boca Raton, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he did not visually check his fuel quantity level during his preflight walk around inspection, and about 15 minutes into his flight he sustained a loss of engine power. He conducted a forced landing on the Florida Turnpike, and during landing rollout, the left wing collided with a road sign, causing structural damage. The wing fuel tanks were not compromised during the collision, and there was no spillage. The FAA reported that 2.5 gallons was the total fuel load aboard at the time of the accident. The 2.5 gallon quantity was substantiated by the salvage crew when the wings were removed. The Cessna 182L type certificate data sheets state that 30 pounds or 5.11 gallons is the fuel system's unusable amount. The engine started normally and operated smoothly to 2,000 rpm, with NTSB oversight, 13 days later.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to perform a proper preflight inspection and refueling of the aircraft, resulting in an in-flight loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion and a collision with a road sign during the emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA053
- Event ID
- 20020129X00147
- Case number
- MIA02LA053
- 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: da80330301ef2cdb72ecd38f9d83c8c5d8f5dacd0fd3cf7def7637445d170f8b; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:10:35.675Z.