CEN10CA297 · Cessna 180 UNDESIGNAT
Eastland Aviation Cessna 180 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Odessa Schlemeyer Field (ODO) to George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA297
- 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 180 UNDESIGNAT Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N154JD
- Operator
- Eastland Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Odessa Schlemeyer Field (ODO), Odessa, TXTo George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, TX
- 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
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot said that he departed with approximately 55 gallons of fuel on board (about 3.5 hours total) and departed on a long cross country flight. Approximately three hours into the flight, while on an ILS approach into his destination airport in VFR conditions, the pilot said the engine suddenly stopped, but the propeller continued to windmill. He pumped the throttle, and finally pushed it pushed full forward, but there was still no thrust. He checked the engine guages and they were normal, but he did not look at the fuel guages. A witness heard the engine sputtering as it flew overhead. The pilot was unable to maintain altitude and attempted to reach a field, but ended up colliding with the roof of a private residence. The airplane came to rest in the residence's backyard. The pilot reported not seeing any fuel leaks or streaks when he got out of the airplane. Examination of the airplane revealed there was no fuel in either wing tank, and there was no staining of the grass or foliage surrounding the airplane. When the airplane wing's were removed for salvage, less than one-pint of fuel was drained from the fuel lines.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion as a result of the pilot's inadequate fuel management.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA297
- Event ID
- 20100604X00102
- Case number
- CEN10CA297
- 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: d3977cac68a0e8d034ca9dc2a4cece74ef84ed0ca368ce5dbc97caa18e2e87ab; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:21:01.373Z.