SEA07LA234 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Glacier Park International Airport (KGPI) to S67 · Nampa, ID
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA234
- 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 182P
- 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
- N52581
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glacier Park International Airport (KGPI), Kalispell, MTTo S67 · Nampa, ID
- 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 turn to base
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Obstructed
- Other person › Maintenance, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After turning base, the pilot advanced the throttle, but the engine had suddenly lost all power. Because he could not reach the runway, the pilot landed in a flat open field off the approach end of the runway. Although the initial touchdown was uneventful, during the rollout, the aircraft encountered an earthen berm and sustained substantial damage. A post-accident inspection found that a significant portion of the carburetor throat was clogged with strips of paint that had come off of the induction air inlet channel aft of the air filter. It was determined that the aircraft had been repainted approximately four months prior to the accident, and an inspection of the air inlet channel revealed other large areas of partially pealed paint. According to the aircraft manufacturer, the surface of the inlet channel aft of the filter is not painted during the manufacturing process, and it should not be painted when new paint is applied to the airframe structure.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to the carburetor throat becoming obstructed with paint that had pealed off of the induction air inlet channel in an area where paint should not have been applied. Factors include an earthen berm running across the field where the pilot made his forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA234
- Event ID
- 20071003X01492
- Case number
- SEA07LA234
- 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: f272c9d264fbc4734038b217baf827a0f4c463e4bb2d4951b02076462f067b54; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:31:37.139Z.