DEN04LA136 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Casper-Natrona County International Airport (CPR) to Northeast Wyoming Regional Airport (GCC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04LA136
- 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
- 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
- N2725G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Casper-Natrona County International Airport (CPR), Casper, WYTo Northeast Wyoming Regional Airport (GCC), Gillette, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 (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
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Fractured
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, overhaul, 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 stated he was in cruise flight when the engine began to run rough. He heard sounds of grinding metal and shortly thereafter, the "engine began to shake violently." The pilot shut the engine down and attempted a forced landing to a plowed field. During the forced landing, the nose wheel impacted a small rut, separating the nose landing gear tire from the nose landing gear assembly. The airplane nosed over, causing substantial damage. An internal examination of the engine showed the number 3 piston, piston rings, and tension springs, and the number 3 exhaust valve head had fragmented into numerous pieces. These pieces were located in the oil sump. The inside of the crankcase halves showed impact damage in the areas aft of the number 4 piston and forward of the number 3 piston. The top inside of the number 3 cylinder head showed numerous impact marks including a 7/8 inch long, 1/8 inch wide and 1/8 inch deep indentation at one of the spark plug openings, and a 1/2 inch long, 1/8 inch wide, and 1/8 inch deep indentation at the area of the exhaust valve seat which were consistent with a valve head edge impact. The number 3 exhaust valve seat was not present. The number 3 exhaust valve stem was removed and examined. Fractures observed on the valve stem were consistent with an overload failure. The number 3 exhaust valve guide showed elongating distortion. An examination of the crankshaft, camshaft, other cylinders, pistons, valves, and valve springs showed no pre-existing failures. No evidence of the number 3 exhaust valve seat was found among the fractured pieces in the engine. An examination of the remaining airplane systems revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
improper engine overhaul performed by the mechanic which resulted in the fractured exhaust valve and subsequent partial loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04LA136
- Event ID
- 20040908X01357
- Case number
- DEN04LA136
- 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: a8f4d6f607f94a775b95400616d0f44b140953ccfdda547951e657f08d4785a9; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:45:36.881Z.