NYC04LA014 · Cessna 182G
Cessna 182G · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From Turners Falls Airport (0B5) to Orange Municipal Airport (ORE)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04LA014
- 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 182G
- 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
- N3419S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Turners Falls Airport (0B5), Turners Falls, MATo Orange Municipal Airport (ORE), Orange, MA
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Accessory drive assembly, drive gear › Disengaged
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
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 had no memory of the accident flight, but recalled that his intention was to practice instrument procedures in visual meteorological conditions. A witness observed the airplane on a "modified right base" to the airport, and shortly after heard the airplane's impact with a lake. Examination of the engine revealed the magneto idler gear support pin and gasket were dislodged from the two attachment studs. The lock washers and both nuts for the attachment studs were not located, and the threads on the studs were unremarkable. Upon removal of the right magneto, the idler gear was observed disengaged from the magneto drive gears. No additional mechanical anomalies were observed with the engine. The last annual inspection was performed about 77 hours prior to the accident. The entry for the annual inspection in the engine logbook included that both magnetos had been removed during the inspection, and were "..reinstalled...and timed to specs."
Probable cause
The loss of power due to disengagement of the magneto idler gear. Also causal was the improper reinstallation of the magneto during the annual inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04LA014
- Event ID
- 20031031X01835
- Case number
- NYC04LA014
- 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: f06e0812eea02f548c4765b1095001b09e6a19e1dd1ba14488d0347c8585267f; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:21:44.539Z.