ATL04LA044 · Cessna 182-K
Cessna 182-K · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Salem Airport (7M9) to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA044
- 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 182-K
- 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
- N3056Q
- Operator
- James R. Cowart · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salem Airport (7M9), Salem, ARTo Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM), Birmingham, AL
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Tree(s); Wire, transmission
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, compliance with ad, not complied with
- Throttle/power lever, cable › Disconnected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was uneventful until the approach to land at the destination airport. When the pilot reduced engine power for the approach, the engine lost power and the throttle would not respond. The pilot informed the control tower that he had a loss of power and proceeded to set up for an emergency landing. The airplane clipped a tree top and went through a power line before touching down on the ground. The airplane landed hard, the nose gear collapsed, and the left wing collided with a light pole. Examination of the airplane found the left and right wings had spar and wing skin damage. Examination of the engine found the throttle cable separated from the throttle body arm. The throttle cable attaching bolt was still attached to the throttle body arm, the nut was missing and the bolt was not drilled for a cotter key. Further review disclosed that Airworthiness Directive 86-24-07 and Cessna Information Letter SE79-6 had not been complied with when the engine assembly was recently installed during the annual inspection.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the throttle/power lever cable becoming disconnected in-flight, as a result of maintenance personnel failure to comply with Airworthiness Directive (AD) 86-24-07 and Cessna information letter SE79-6.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA044
- Event ID
- 20031204X01995
- Case number
- ATL04LA044
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-12-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ae615ad00e4d553edc5db186edb0a87f7cb674448d4ba7f0f54f2bd2c5639f31; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:18:55.382Z.