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WPR11LA359 · Cessna 182A

2 Aug 2011 · Emmett, ID, United States

Cessna 182A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route

From Fish Lake US Forest Service Airport (S92) to Emmett Municipal Airport (S78)

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Event

NTSB case
WPR11LA359
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 182A

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
N6399B
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Fish Lake US Forest Service Airport (S92), Fish Lake USFS, IDTo Emmett Municipal Airport (S78), Emmett, ID
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
En route · cruise
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
  • Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

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

NTSB narrative

The pilot reported that he fueled the tanks to their full capacity with a mixture of 100LL and automobile gas prior to departing. During the return flight, as the pilot descended to the destination airport, the engine lost power and the pilot force-landed the airplane in a field. A postaccident examination revealed fuel in the right wing, but the fuel line from the left wing to the fuel selector had separated during the accident, allowing the remaining fuel in the left tank to drain out. Examination of the engine revealed no preimpact mechanical anomalies. The airplane was operating in conditions conducive to serious icing at glide power at the time of the accident. The pilot did not apply carburetor heat until after the engine power was lost. An airplane user's group reported that the specific make/model airplane is susceptible to developing carburetor ice and the use of automobile gas also increases the likelihood of carburetor ice.

Probable cause

A total loss of engine power due to carburetor icing because the pilot did not use carburetor heat.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR11LA359
Event ID
20110802X94413
Case number
WPR11LA359
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: a6a231ef29d4e93330060948f0024712a628ff9ab0ee6348bb9a297225ed1009; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:33:03.520Z.