DEN04LA018 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG) to NM
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04LA018
- 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 182A
- 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
- N5127D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG), Albuquerque, NMTo NM
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Dual student › Flare, inadequate
- Dual student › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
In the pattern for runway 22, the instructor pulled the throttle to idle and applied the carburetor heat to simulate an engine failure. The student established an airspeed of 75 mph and turned towards the runway. Approximately 100 feet agl, the airplane encountered "a heavy sink rate." The instructor stated that the stall horn did not sound and the bank angle was shallow. The student added power "rapidly"; however, the engine did not respond. The airplane struck the runway on the main gear. It bounced and struck the runway again, separating the nose gear, sending the airplane skidding on its nose. A postimpact fire ensued, consuming the fuselage.Temperature was 62 degrees Fahrenheit (F) and dew point was 32 degrees F. According to the carburetor icing probability chart, the temperature and dew point were right on the edge of serious icing conditions at glide power.
Probable cause
the pilot's delayed use of carburetor heat and his inadequate flare resulting in a loss of engine power and a hard landing. Also causal was the inadequate supervision of the flight. Carburetor icing conditions was a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04LA018
- Event ID
- 20040105X00008
- Case number
- DEN04LA018
- 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: d15cfd03c31b9eb9a4b9e976cce30b84ae00bd82fc378443e98c076914317e18; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:14:44.327Z.