ERA18FA231 · Cessna 182 A
Cessna 182 A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Emanuel County Airport (SBO) to Emanuel County Airport (SBO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18FA231
- 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
- 4 · 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 182 A
- 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
- N4785D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Emanuel County Airport (SBO), Swainsboro, GATo Emanuel County Airport (SBO), Swainsboro, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1958)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After completing several skydiving flights without incident, the airplane was refueled. The pilot completed the next flight uneventfully; however, during takeoff on the subsequent flight, the airplane reached an altitude about 150 ft above ground level when it lost total engine power. A witness reported that the wings "rocked" left and right before the airplane pitched down and impacted the ground. Examination of the airplane revealed that the right fuel tank cap was missing and tape was covering the fuel filler port on the right wing. The tape was installed during the most recent refueling. The fuel selector valve sustained significant thermal damage and was observed in the "both" position when disassembled. Examination of the fuel tank vent line did not reveal any obstructions; however, the line was impact damaged. Examination of the engine and its components revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. While the installation of tape over the right wing fuel filler port likely resulted in a non-venting seal, it could not be determined if it resulted in the loss of engine power, as other means of fuel system venting likely remained. After the total loss of engine power, the airplane exceeded its critical angle of attack and experienced an aerodynamic stall at too low of an altitude for the pilot to recover.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18FA231
- Event ID
- 20180825X51934
- Case number
- ERA18FA231
- 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: 34a5812455df76a580f046077e025d0b1864302b9d7f8b19205acd881eb8b518; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:46:50.031Z.