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ERA11LA167 · Cessna 182F

27 Feb 2011 · Auburn, AL, United States

Cessna 182F · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering

From Moton Field Municipal Airport (06A) to Moton Field Municipal Airport (06A)

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Event

NTSB case
ERA11LA167
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 182F

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
N3420U
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Moton Field Municipal Airport (06A), Tuskegee, ALTo Moton Field Municipal Airport (06A), Tuskegee, AL
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
Maneuvering
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 (partial)
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 power plant
  • Personnel issues › Action/decision
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The airplane was approximately 2,700 feet above ground level when the engine stopped producing full power and the airplane began to lose altitude. The pilot elected to land on a road and the airplane subsequently impacted an automobile. No preimpact mechanical anomalies of the engine were noted; however, examination of the muffler assembly revealed that the right internal baffle cone had separated from the surrounding structure. It was possible for the separated baffle cone to partially block the exhaust exit; however, its position as found would not have resulted in a loss of engine power. The airplane had been operated for about 2 hours since its most recent annual inspection, which was performed about 5 months prior to the accident. Due to the amount of damage observed to the fracture surfaces of the baffle cone, it was likely that the fracture occurred prior to the annual inspection. Inspection guidance used by the maintenance facility that performed the annual inspection included an inspection of the muffler, heat exchange, and baffles.

Probable cause

A loss of engine power due to an internal failure of the muffler that was not detected by maintenance personnel.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ERA11LA167
Event ID
20110227X61049
Case number
ERA11LA167
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: e324539a1d2851344bec5c3c5fe2d685b1bbc32515631d93e4393c9a821accec; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:51:24.311Z.