DEN04LA008 · Cessna 182R
Cessna 182R · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Bridger Creek Airport (WY34) to Bridger Creek Airport (WY34)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04LA008
- 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 182R
- 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
- N4981E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bridger Creek Airport (WY34), Lysite, WYTo Bridger Creek Airport (WY34), Lysite, WY
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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)
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, while returning from surveying cattle on his ranch, he was flying approximately 500 feet agl when the engine lost power. The pilot stated that, the fuel gauge was indicating "10 to 15 [gallons] on the right and E[empty] on the left tank." The pilot attempted to restart the engine, but was unable to regain engine power. He turned towards a nearby ridgeline and made a forced landing. The airplane struck the ground, and nosed over. The pilot said that he had flown the airplane several times for a total of approximately 6 hours since he last refueled.
Probable cause
the pilot's fuel mismanagement resulting in the loss of engine power and the subsequent forced landing. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing and the nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04LA008
- Event ID
- 20031022X01793
- Case number
- DEN04LA008
- 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: b8dddf568016dada1df3ad8b4f69dc143fef439020b9ca75d9e7633c57e2c03f; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:21:23.834Z.