Cessna R182 N1835R

Summary

On 12 September 2017 at about 22:30 local time, a Cessna R182 registered N1835R, operated by Meridian Flying Services Inc., was involved in an accident near Worland, Wyoming, United States. One person was on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

12 September 2017 at 22:30

Classification

Accident

Location

Worland, Wyoming, United States

Nearest airport

Worland Municipal (WRL)

Coordinates

43.9628, -107.9506

Aircraft

Cessna R182

Registration

N1835R

Category

Airplane

Year built

1978

Engines

1

Operator

Meridian Flying Services Inc.

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Aerial Observation

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Williston → Worland

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

CEN17LA356

Nobody was injured.

The pilot's decision to operate an airplane with unreliable fuel gauges and the worn fuel cap seal that allowed fuel to siphon from the left wing fuel tank, which ultimately resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The commercial pilot reported that, about halfway through the planned pipeline surveillance flight, the engine experienced a total loss of power and he performed a forced landing to a dirt road. A postaccident examination revealed that both fuel tanks appeared to be empty; the left wing fuel tank cap seal appeared to be worn, and the left wing exhibited fuel staining aft of the fuel cap, consistent with fuel siphoning from the tank in flight. The airplane was fueled the preceding night, and the pilot had assumed the fuel tanks were full upon departing on the first flight of the day. The airplane was flown 2.7 hours on the morning of the accident before it was refueled. The pilot did not recall visually confirming the fuel level following that refueling. An additional 4.1 hours of flight time elapsed from the time the airplane was refueled until the accident. According to the pilot, the airplane's fuel gauges were unreliable. To compensate, he had adopted the practice of completely filling the fuel tanks during each refueling, tracking the intervening flight time, and calculating fuel burn based on the airplane's average fuel consumption rate. Two days before the accident, an individual refueling the airplane informed him that the left fuel cap seal was torn. A new fuel cap seal had not yet been installed. Although the amount of fuel lost through the cap could not be quantified, the unreliable fuel gauges did not allow the pilot to monitor either the normal fuel consumption nor alert him to the potentially abnormal rate of consumption due to the siphoning fuel. In addition, the pilot failed to verify the amount of fuel onboard before departure, which further rendered his method of tracking fuel consumption inaccurate.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.