WPR09LA223 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Pierce County-Thun Field (PLU) to Bremerton National Airport (PWT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA223
- 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
- N382CH
- Operator
- Clifford G Howell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pierce County-Thun Field (PLU), Puyallup, WATo Bremerton National Airport (PWT), Bremerton, WA
- 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
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe 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 (total)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the accident flight was the first flight following maintenance that replaced the fuel sending units, which required draining the fuel tanks. The pilot stated that maintenance personnel added 20 gallons of fuel to each main tank following the work. He did not physically check the fuel level in the tanks, but noted that both fuel gages indicated the same amount of fuel prior to flight. He reported that the engine lost power about 500 feet above ground level on takeoff, and he made an off airport landing that damaged the wings, airframe, and rudder. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector examined the airplane the night of the accident, and noted that no fuel was in the left main tank, but maintenance personnel drained about 20 gallons from the right tank. On a follow-up exam, investigators added 5 gallons of fuel to the left wing tank. The engine started immediately without hesitation. It accelerated smoothly to 1,800 rpm, and a magneto check revealed no anomalies. The engine was decelerated to idle rpm; the engine ran smoothly, and shutdown was unremarkable. The airplane had a recording engine data management unit installed. Data indicated that fuel flow dropped to 0 gallons per hour 6 seconds prior to a loss of rpm.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot’s failure to verify the fuel levels in the tanks, and, his failure to select the proper fuel tank.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA223
- Event ID
- 20090501X90155
- Case number
- WPR09LA223
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: c5d4fd14cdde612d45a38944e78ade66aa7c8e9b6e22e1e5166d6da542e77376; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:00:34.800Z.