CEN20LA245 · Cessna 182 R
Brentco Aerial Patrol Cessna 182 R · Accident: fuel starvation while maneuvering
From Cushing Municipal Airport (CUH) to Mount Pleasant Regional Airport (OSA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA245
- 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 R
- 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
- N958HP
- Operator
- Brentco Aerial Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cushing Municipal Airport (CUH), Cushing, OKTo Mount Pleasant Regional Airport (OSA), Mount Pleasant, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1981)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 4.1 hours after the pilot’s departure to conduct a pipeline patrol flight, the engine began to “sputter” and “run rough” while at an altitude about 850 ft above the ground. The pilot was unable to restore engine power by “switching fuel tanks a couple of times” and selecting a full-rich fuel mixture. The engine “surged” between idle and a high rpm a couple of times before it lost all power. The pilot located an open field for a forced landing, but the airplane was unable to stop before it collided with a fence and trees that bordered the field. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage.
Postaccident examination revealed that the right-wing fuel tank was breached during impact and contained about 1 gallon of fuel. The left-wing fuel tank remained intact and contained about 1 gallon of fuel. The cockpit fuel selector lever was found in the BOTH position; however, the shaft between the cockpit fuel selector lever and the fuel selector valve disconnected during impact. Testing of the fuel selector valve established that fuel from the left fuel tank was being used at the time of the accident and confirmed normal valve operation in all selectable positions.
The pilot reported that the flight departed with full fuel tanks (88 gallons usable) and was unsure of the fuel selector position before the engine began to run rough. Based on the reported fuel consumption rate of 10 to 11 gallons per hour, the airplane would have used about one-half of its fuel capacity when the loss of engine power occurred after 4.1 hours of flight. It is likely that the pilot departed with the fuel selector valve positioned to an individual fuel tank, instead of using fuel simultaneously from both tanks, which resulted in fuel starvation and the loss of engine power. Additionally, the low altitude at which the loss of engine power occurred significantly reduced the amount of time available to the pilot to troubleshoot and restore engine power before the forced landing.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to the pilot’s improper fuel management, which led to fuel starvation. Contributing to the accident was the low altitude at which the loss of engine power occurred.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA245
- Event ID
- 20200624X64251
- Case number
- CEN20LA245
- 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: 38fa2856112b5b7d16f304b0e291450d47292cc8bdcba47bdbfd70d215f32989; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:55:45.786Z.