SEA03LA082 · Cessna 182J
Cessna 182J · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO) to HNW · Placerville, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA082
- 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 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
- N2913F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO), Hillsboro, ORTo HNW · Placerville, 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while cruising at 11,500 feet in order to get over some clouds, the engine slowly started losing power. Because it appeared to him that it might be carburetor icing, the pilot applied carburetor heat, but the engine continued to lose more power. Eventually the engine lost enough power that the pilot was unable to hold altitude, and he therefore found it necessary to descend and attempt a forced landing in an open field. Although the touchdown was uneventful, during the landing roll the aircraft encountered some rough terrain, resulting in substantial damage. A post-accident engine teardown inspection found a large hole in the top of the crankcase, and numerous internal parts failures. There were also several components within the engine that displayed coloration signatures consistent with heat stress due to lack of lubrication, but an inspection of the oil filter, oil filter adapter, propeller governor, push rod seals, oil pressure line, dipstick tube, oil sump quick drain, oil pump, tachometer drive, and oil filler port/cap found no evidence of a pre-event oil leak. Ultimately, the initiating event leading to the sequence of events resulting in the catastrophic engine failure could not be determined.
Probable cause
Loss of power in cruise flight due to a catastrophic engine failure for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA082
- Event ID
- 20030519X00689
- Case number
- SEA03LA082
- 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: 1c74c47b722c7ae733421453fa19dbde2415bed416f0e48cf2c96cf4ebca21cc; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:29:31.651Z.