CHI05CA166 · Cessna 182F
Cessna 182F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Bishop International Airport (FNT) to Huron County Memorial Airport (BAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05CA166
- 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 182F
- 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
- N3184U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bishop International Airport (FNT), Flint, MITo Huron County Memorial Airport (BAX), Bad Axe, MI
- 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
- Fuel system, cap › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was substantially damaged when it nosed over during a forced landing following an in-flight loss of engine power. The pilot stated that after 2 hours total flight time since refueling, the engine "coughed and [stopped] firing." He executed a forced landing in a cornfield, during which the nose landing gear collapsed and the airplane nosed over. A post-accident inspection revealed that the left fuel tank cap was not secure and was retained only by the safety chain between the cap and the fuel filler port. The right fuel tank cap was secured to the fuel tank filler port. No fuel was present in either fuel tank. The ground under the left fuel tank cap was discolored consistent with a fuel spill over a 12-inch diameter area, to a depth of about 4 inches. A stain consistent in appearance to fuel and several "nick marks" were observed on the upper surface of the left wing aft of the fuel tank filler port. The cockpit fuel selector handle was on the "BOTH" setting when observed after the accident. The pilot stated that he visually inspected the fuel caps from the ground after refueling. He did not physically verify the security of the fuel caps.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection due to his failure to physically verify the security of the fuel tank caps, the unsecured fuel tank cap and fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05CA166
- Event ID
- 20050715X01031
- Case number
- CHI05CA166
- 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: 7301dc0aae8d5351ac90049b359af141a202050de2bf62689b08a84f1d74af88; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:58:35.105Z.