SEA05CA045 · Cessna 182G
Cessna 182G · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW) to Madras, OR
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05CA045
- 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
- N3127S
- Operator
- Paul H. Jensen · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW), Walla Walla, WATo Madras, OR
- 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
- Total 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
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 reported that he departed with about 30 gallons of fuel on board and about 2.5 hours of expected flying time. While en route, the aircraft encountered higher than expected headwinds. The pilot noted clouds building up over the terrain east of Madras, Oregon, the flights destination and diverted to the south towards Redmond. The pilot reported that he was getting low on fuel and selected the right side fuel tank which was the lowest on fuel The pilot stated that when the needle indicated "no sloshing", he noted the time. Five minutes later the EGT indicated exhaustion of fuel in that tank and the engine began to faulter. The pilot then switched to the left fuel tank. When about three minutes from Redmond, the EGT rose followed by the loss of engine power. The pilot executed an off airport forced landing to a clearing where during the landing roll, the aircraft collided with trees.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight decision by failing to refuel while en route, resulting in fuel exhaustion and the loss of power. Trees were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05CA045
- Event ID
- 20050304X00270
- Case number
- SEA05CA045
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 94c71884571a5903745126da580b24350c64282d4a106a22af3ae75ae4b648a7; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:04:42.297Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative names the destination: "clouds building up over the terrain east of Madras, Oregon, the flights destination and diverted to the south towards Redmond"; Redmond was the diversion.