MIA06CA034 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From P K Airpark (5W4) to Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06CA034
- 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
- N8304S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From P K Airpark (5W4), Raeford, NCTo Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07), Lake Wales, FL
- 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
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, 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 that he departed about 1845 to his destination with a planned stop en route to attend to some personal matters. He arrived at his stop about 1950, and departed there about 2015. He reached a cruising altitude of 7,500 feet, and estimated that it would take 2 hours and 25 minutes to reach his destination per his GPS. During his descent to his destination, at 5,500 feet, the engine lost power. The pilot was able to land the airplane in an orange grove 1 mile west of Highway 27, 14 miles south of his destination. The airplane skidded 200 feet before the nose gear separated, and the airplane nosed over. No fuel was observed leaking from the wings, and there was no post accident fire. The right wing fuel cap was observed to be not fully secured and with fuel streak stains. In addition, the pilot stated that when he topped off the accident airplane before departing, he noticed a fuel dye residue on the wing, blue in color. He stated that he is almost certain he ran out of fuel; however, he should have had enough fuel to make it to his destination.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper preflight planning/preparation, and operation of equipment with known deficiencies, a right wing fuel cap leak, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06CA034
- Event ID
- 20060117X00084
- Case number
- MIA06CA034
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-12-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 927576a15181c5b3c7a9a4ee03703005a9c3581c62b09aa1a7759262fc48e522; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:11:24.750Z.