LAX82FVG17 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Apple Valley, CA to Buchanan Field (CCR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FVG17
- 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 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
- N3910D
- Operator
- Larry Bechtold
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Apple Valley, CATo Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CA
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Folsom, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT VISUALLY CHECKED THE FUEL BEFORE TAKEOFF AND WAS AWARE THAT THE TANKS WERE NOT FULL. HE REPORTED THAT HE WOULD ONLY USE 80/87 OCTANE FUEL BECAUSE THE ENGINE WAS NOT EQUIPPED WITH VALVES THAT WOULD ACCEPT 100 OCTANE FUEL. DURING THE FLIGHT, HE ENCOUNTERED CLOUDS AND DIVERTED FROM HIS ORIGINAL ROUTE. THE LEFT FUEL TANK WENT DRY ABOUT 20 MILES SOUTH OF PHOENIX FIELD, FAIR OAKS, CA. HE SWITCHED TO THE RIGHT TANK AND PROCEEDED TOWARD PHOENIX FIELD. THE PILOT SAID THAT HE CHECKED THE RIGHT FUEL TANK GAUGE AFTER SWITCHING TANKS AND IT SHOWED A LITTLE LESS THAN HALF FULL. HOWEVER, WHILE THE PILOT WAS DIVERTING, THE ENGINE LOST POWER AND WOULD NOT RESTART. THE AIRCRAFT WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED DURING A LANDING ON ROUGH, HILLY TERRAIN IN AN AREA OF TREES AND BRUSH. THE ELEVATION OF THE CRASH SITE WAS APPROXIMATELY 4500 FT MSL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FVG17
- Event ID
- 20020917X02322
- Case number
- LAX82FVG17
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1982-03-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0796820dafe9d202c5ede8a4673760febf06b0d8c428197f2cda4716e5ed2cff; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:18:01.932Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "THE AIRCRAFT WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED DURING A LANDING ON ROUGH, HILLY TERRAIN" after the fuel exhaustion power loss; no destruction or fire is described.