ERA19LA017 · Cessna 182 P
Cessna 182 P · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Auburn University Regional Airport (AUO) to Athens Ben Epps Airport (AHN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA017
- 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 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
- N9398G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn University Regional Airport (AUO), Auburn, ALTo Athens Ben Epps Airport (AHN), Athens, GA
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the climb after takeoff, the pilot noticed a drop in engine oil pressure and turned back toward the airport to land. Almost immediately thereafter, the engine began to run rough and eventually lost power completely. The pilot performed a forced landing to an interstate exit ramp, during which the airplane sustained substantial damage.
Examination of the engine revealed that the Nos. 2 and 4 connecting rods were separated from their respective rod journals. All rod journals were absent of lubrication and displayed heat damage. Disassembly of the engine and the separation of the case halves revealed abnormal wear and damage consistent with loss of lubrication. Examination and testing of engine accessories revealed no anomalies that would have prevented normal operation.
The engine was equipped with a screw-on oil filter adaptor required to be torqued to 65 ft/lbs at installation, and the integrity of the oil filter adaptor installation was required to be examined during every 100-hour and annual inspection. The adaptor on the accident engine was found loose and could be easily rotated by hand through a 90° arc, and oil seepage was found on the area surrounding the oil filter adapter attachment point. Given this information, it is likely that the loose adaptor allowed the engine oil to be pumped overboard, resulting in a loss of engine lubrication and catastrophic failure of the Nos. 2 and 4 connecting rods.
Probable cause
The improper torque application and ongoing inspection of an oil filter adaptor by maintenance personnel, which resulted in a loss of lubrication and a catastrophic engine failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA017
- Event ID
- 20181017X82226
- Case number
- ERA19LA017
- 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: 9d016caef3d629fac775bf8dbfe5ace24a0447937629394d604710c6d4255dec; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:21:45.059Z.