WPR25LA217 · Cessna TR182
Cessna TR182 · Accident: fuel exhaustion en route
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR25LA217
- 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
- Ongoing
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 TR182
- 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
- N182KC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, CATo Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN), Farmington, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1979)
- 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
- 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 exhaustion
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On July 17, 2025, about 1447 mountain standard time, a Cessna TR182, N182KC, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Tuba City, Arizona. The pilot and passenger were not injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulation Part 91 personal flight. The pilot reported that he departed with 62 gallons of fuel onboard and that he had verified the fuel quantity multiple times with a calibrated dipstick prior to departure. While enroute, and after switching to the right tank, which indicated about 31 gallons at the time, the engine began to run rough and sputter. He attempted to switch to BOTH fuel tanks, but the engine continued to sputter. The pilot activated the fuel boost pump, which displayed no fuel pressure at which time the engine lost all power. He executed a forced landing to the side of road to avoid vehicular traffic and with the landing gear stowed due to rough terrain. During landing the airplane belly contacted the ground, which substantially damaged the right wing and left elevator. Postaccident examination of the fuel tanks revealed that they were both empty; however, the pilot suspected a leak in the fuel delivery system. The airplane was recovered to a secure facility for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR25LA217
- Event ID
- 20250721200587
- Case number
- WPR25LA217
- 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. 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: 917367382fe4b8c70de993c94b78657157130c5ce4c4d76103f49ebba53c5ce2; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:06:41.269Z.