ERA11LA370 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: fuel starvation during initial climb
From Holly Springs Marshall County Airport (M41) to John Farese Airpark (MS14)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA370
- 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
- N759ZS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Holly Springs Marshall County Airport (M41), Holly Springs, MSTo John Farese Airpark (MS14), Ashland, MS
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during the preflight inspection, he verified that the fuel selector valve was selected to the “BOTH” tanks on position by tactile feel; however, he did not visually verify the actual position of the valve. During departure, about 400 feet above ground level, as the pilot began to make a left turn on course, the engine lost power. The airplane nosed down, and the pilot activated the newly installed ballistic recovery system, which deployed a parachute. The airplane impacted several trees and came to rest upright. Examination of the airplane revealed that the fuel selector valve was in the "OFF" position. After the airplane was partially disassembled and recovered from the accident site, a fuel supply was rigged to the right wing fuel line, and the fuel selector was moved to the right tank position. The engine started and operated normally at idle; due to the extent of the damage to the airplane, the throttle was advanced only to 1500 rpm.
Probable cause
The pilot's incorrect positioning of the fuel tank selector before takeoff, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation during takeoff initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11LA370
- Event ID
- 20110628X92529
- Case number
- ERA11LA370
- 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: 0ca77f226fd5d5ada010512ad54422ff1d334472dec6c665a261cb5908628c12; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:22:12.807Z.