CEN19FA008 · Cessna 182 P
Cessna 182 P · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Lake Havasu City Airport (HII) to Double Eagle II Airport (AEG)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA008
- 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
- 2 · 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 P
- 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
- N9326G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Havasu City Airport (HII), Lake Havasu, AZTo Double Eagle II Airport (AEG), Albuquerque, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1971)
- 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 · descent
- 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 from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting a cross-country flight when the airplane had a loss of engine power while descending through an area of precipitation and icing conditions. He was unable to restore normal engine operation using carburetor heat, which resulted in a forced landing. The airplane struck the terrain in a right wing down attitude and cartwheeled upon impact. Shortly after the accident, an individual observed several pieces of structural ice on the ground below the airplane’s left wing leading edge.
After the accident, the engine demonstrated the ability to produce rated horsepower during an engine test. However, the carburetor heat control cable was found fractured and exhibited evidence of prolonged polishing wear against the cable sheathing. It is likely that the carburetor heat control cable had failed in overstress due to its reduced cross section from the polishing wear. Additionally, based on contaminants observed on the cable and fracture surfaces, the carburetor heat control cable had been fractured for an extended period before the flight.
The airplane was not approved for flight in known icing conditions; however, if inadvertently flown in icing conditions, the carburetor heat should be engaged to avoid a loss of engine power due to induction air filter icing and/or carburetor icing. It is likely the loss of engine power during the flight was due to an accumulation of ice on the induction air filter and/or to the carburetor, and the pilot was unable to restore engine power because the fractured control cable had rendered the carburetor heat inoperative. According to the airplane’s operating handbook, pilots are to verify the proper operation of the carburetor heat during an engine runup before each flight.
A review of the airplane’s flight track and weather data indicated the airplane had flown through areas of precipitation that were consistent with freezing drizzle and supercooled liquid water droplets favorable for structural icing conditions. There was no record that pilot had received a weather briefing before the flight and, as such, his awareness of the icing conditions before the flight could not be determined.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to induction system icing. Contributing to the accident was the fractured carburetor heat control cable, which rendered the carburetor heat inoperative.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA008
- Event ID
- 20181016X94909
- Case number
- CEN19FA008
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: cb8f3f53fe26c1ee29f25adb3f7e04d95d08217b4159589bf17f37ded025b3c1; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:49:38.612Z.