ERA13LA257 · Cessna 180J
Cessna 180J · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Greenwood–Leflore Airport (GWO) to Greenwood–Leflore Airport (GWO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA257
- 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 180J
- 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
- N9996N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenwood–Leflore Airport (GWO), Greenwood, MSTo Greenwood–Leflore Airport (GWO), Greenwood, 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot stated that, after performing a simulated engine failure about 300 feet above ground level, he advanced the throttle to full power, but the engine would not develop full power. The flight instructor took control of the airplane and maneuvered it for a forced landing to a nearby field. During the landing roll, the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted. No evidence of preaccident mechanical malfunctions or abnormalities were found with the engine that would have precluded normal operation. A review of meteorological data revealed that the airplane was being operated in conditions conducive to serious carburetor icing at glide power. The investigation could not determine if carburetor heat was used during the simulated engine failure; however, it is likely that if carburetor heat was not used, serious carburetor icing could have accumulated, which resulted in a loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA257
- Event ID
- 20130529X35908
- Case number
- ERA13LA257
- 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: 1e74bdebfaf4494d953986aa82bc0d6add7f95f17608273376019d0938445d3e; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:41:18.794Z.