CEN15LA430 · Cessna 182G G
Cessna 182G G · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE) to Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA430
- 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 182G G
- 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
- N3147S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, COTo Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1964)
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot performed a preflight inspection of the airplane, listened to a recorded weather report, and departed on a local flight. About 15 minutes into the flight, at an altitude of 9,700 ft above mean sea level, he realized the engine was at full throttle and had no more power to climb. He later reported that the electronic engine monitor indicated he "lost cylinder #2 and #4 was going down." He also stated that the engine did not completely stop producing power, but it was "running very low." The pilot elected to perform a forced landing to an open field. The airplane touched down twice, impacted a ditch, and nosed over. The examination of the airframe and test run of the engine and did not reveal any pre-impact mechanical anomalies.
The local temperature and dew point were plotted on a carburetor icing probability chart, which indicated that conditions were favorable for the formation of carburetor icing at glide and cruise power. Further, review of recorded information from the airplane's engine monitor showed data consistent with a loss of engine power due to carburetor ice. The pilot stated that he did not use carburetor heat during the flight, thus it is likely that the engine lost power due to carburetor ice, which could have been prevented with the application of carburetor heat.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during cruise flight due to carburetor icing and the pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat, which resulted in a forced landing on rough/uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA430
- Event ID
- 20150928X85210
- Case number
- CEN15LA430
- 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: c54603274f46b50d1f571e249444c11798df12fda63e0f1e2088ce1ee7d7bdc8; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:50:03.516Z.