LAX07LA102 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From 2Q3 · Woodland, CA to Banning Municipal Airport (BNG)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA102
- 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 182Q
- 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
- N735SD
- Operator
- Landall R. Ropke · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2Q3 · Woodland, CATo Banning Municipal Airport (BNG), Banning, CA
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
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 checked the weather reports during the approach to the destination airport for landing. The winds were reported as from "080 degrees at 20-30 knots." The pilot set up for left-hand traffic for the east-oriented runway. After turning from base to final at 500 feet above ground level (agl), the pilot added power to extend the glide; however, the engine did not respond and remained at idle. The pilot applied full throttle, but there was still no increase in power from idle. He noted power lines and buildings between him and the airport, and knew that he was not going to make the runway. The pilot decided to make a forced landing on a nearby freeway. He stalled the airplane to land between cars, and landed hard, which resulted in structural damage to the fuselage. The nearest official weather reporting facility located 20 nautical miles from the accident site reported winds from 080 degrees at 17 knots, gusting to 23 knots. Local airport operations personnel noted strong easterly winds at 30 to 50 miles per hour during the day. An inspection of the engine revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
Loss of engine power while on final approach for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was the unfavorable wind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA102
- Event ID
- 20070314X00294
- Case number
- LAX07LA102
- 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: 12be968ffb6e4ecec4238527712dfca81e455cb936786e49dbd6302b6f22ad27; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:00:42.151Z.