ATL04LA105 · Cessna 182A
Emerald Coast Skydiving Center Cessna 182A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Horak Airport (7AL9) to Horak Airport (7AL9)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA105
- 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
- N5099D
- Operator
- Emerald Coast Skydiving Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Horak Airport (7AL9), Elberta, ALTo Horak Airport (7AL9), Elberta, 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, line › Blocked(partial)
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, after the four parachute jumpers exited the airplane, and as he maneuvered the airplane for a landing, the engine lost power. Initial efforts by the pilot to restore full power were unsuccessful, however as the pilot continued, the engine regained partial power. The pilot entered a straight approach for runway 18, While on short final to land on runway 18, the pilot thought he was too high and to fast to land and he initiated a go around. During the go around, the airplane lost engine power. The pilot elected to land on another part of the same field. The aircraft touched down approximately 840 feet west of the approach end of runway 36 on a heading of 270 degrees, heading towards a paved road, power lines and a tree line. The pilot stated that after touchdown, the airplane engine began to develop power. The pilot decided to abort the landing to avoid hitting the road and the trees. During the aborted landing, the airplane flew under the power lines, crossed the paved road but, the right main gear collided with the ground and the airplane nosed over approximately 220 feet west of Baldwin County Road in a wheat field. The pilot stated that he had "insufficient speed to continue take-off." Prior to the flight, the pilot reported that he refueled the airplane to a total of 25 gallons of fuel. Examination of airplane revealed the wings were bent at the outboard leading edge, damage to the right spar and main wheel strut, the propeller was bent rearward at both tips with curved signatures, the firewall was bent near bottom and the right gear was detached. Examination of the flight control system revealed no mechanical malfunctions. An engine test run was also performed. After removing the main fuel line from the firewall, a piece of foreign material was found. The main fuel line was shook and the foreign material escaped out the end of the line allowing fuel to flow freely. The foreign material was searched for in the belly of the airplane but was not found. The main fuel line was reassembled to the firewall and fuel selector valve and fuel to the engine was verified. The engine ran normal to 1800 rpm and a magneto check was performed with a 100 rpm drop noted.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to a foreign substance blockage of the fuel line which resulted in fuel starvation, and the pilot's failure to maintain terrain clearance during an aborted landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA105
- Event ID
- 20040601X00706
- Case number
- ATL04LA105
- 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: 6c9f1bc3eaac604a4c707ed760094d107d7d358d8fbf96fdda5634ec7ab1dd2f; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:14:58.676Z.