CEN20CA047 · Cessna 182 F
Cessna 182 F · Accident: loss of control on ground while standing
From Valley International Airport (KHRL) to Zuehl Airport (1TE4)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20CA047
- 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 F
- 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
- N3473U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Valley International Airport (KHRL), Harlingen, TXTo Zuehl Airport (1TE4), Marion, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1963)
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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 control on ground
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he parked the airplane in front of the fuel pump and refueled both wing tanks before pushing the airplane back. The pilot reported that, while checking to see if the battery would charge before continuing the flight, the propeller turned slowly, and the engine did not start, so he chose to hand prop the airplane. He set the throttle, mixture, and parking brake, and after several attempts, the engine started. The engine appeared to be at idle, but then the rpms increased. The airplane moved forward and impacted the fuel station's credit card machine before he could enter and stop the airplane. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the airframe's bottom firewall area. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed that the throttle's friction lock was working. A check of the parking brake revealed that, even after the parking brake was applied, the airplane moved, and the brake did not function as intended. The reason for the parking brake malfunction was not determined. The accident is consistent with the pilot not setting the friction lock on the throttle and not verifying if the airplane would move when the parking brake was set.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to set the friction lock on the throttle before hand propping the engine, which allowed the airplane to move forward and impact a credit card machine. Contributing to the accident was the malfunction of the parking brake for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20CA047
- Event ID
- 20191230X15852
- Case number
- CEN20CA047
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-12-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a0f39f7fc6217620683f696c70a078ca4f2838faeda3271d914710acddbe7c77; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:50:08.878Z.