WPR11CA174 · Cessna 182C
Cessna 182C · Accident: ground handling event while standing
From Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK) to Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA174
- 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 182C
- 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
- N9040T
- Operator
- Mattew R. Stefanac · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK), Stockton, CATo Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK), Stockton, 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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
- Ground handling event
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said he had tried to start the airplane's engine, but the battery seemed weak. He decided to pull the propeller by hand a revolution or two to get more oil/lubricant to the cylinders, rings, and valve stems. He explained to his non-pilot passenger that he was not going to start the engine, but mechanically lubricate it for an easier start. He stated that he turned the master off, and he believed that he turned the magnetos off. He did not set the parking brake or block the tires. After the propeller was turned 1 to 1.5 revolutions, the engine started. The airplane lurched forward and the pilot was unable to get into it. The airplane crossed a taxiway and a runway before it encountered soft earth and nosed over. The engine was pushed aft, wrinkling the fuselage, the right wing lift strut was bent, the right wing displayed wrinkles, and the aft section of the fuselage was bent and wrinkled.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to secure the airplane before pulling the propeller to start the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA174
- Event ID
- 20110320X24141
- Case number
- WPR11CA174
- 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: 2ab0ede2a93fa9bd10e35603d0d5984c59b2210f29312f4be3e22fd88fd8cfd9; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:56:20.036Z.