The Cessna 182 pilot was on a personal sightseeing flight when she realized she was low on fuel, and immediately diverted to an alternate airport.
While enroute to the alternate airport she determined that enough fuel remained by consulting her onboard fuel computer, and elected to continue to her destination.
As she approached her destination airport, the airplane’s engine began to sputter, followed by a total loss of engine power, and she selected a small private airstrip near Wasilla, Alaska, as a landing site.
During the emergency descent she “undershot” the landing area, and flared into the trees near the approach end of the runway.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings, fuselage and horizontal stabilizer.
Probable cause: The pilot’s failure to ensure adequate fuel was onboard to complete the flight, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and the subsequent loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the improperly calibrated fuel quantity indication system.
NTSB Identification: ANC15CA052
This July 2015 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
Gravity brought the aircraft down… not fuel exhaustion…. (think about a glider where is the fuel source?)….
What contributed to the PIC not making an uneventful flight……according to the NTSB…
Probable cause: The pilot’s failure to ensure adequate fuel was onboard to complete the flight, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and the subsequent loss of engine power. ……
and with the loss of engine power the PIC, then had to make decisions that a PIC normally would not have to make….
The PIC caused the aircraft to land somewhere other than where the PIC wanted to land., because of the decisions the PIC made…… GRAVITY brought the aircraft back to earth…..the PIC decisions in the chain of events resulted in the unintended landing off an airport.
Fuel exhaustion had nothing to do with this accident…. all to do with how the PIC conducted themselves and the decisions that PIC made on that day, on that flight.
I’ve flown 182s in the past and find it hard to believe that you can run the bird out of fuel without being a total dunce in regards to fuel monitoring. Consulting an onboard computer to determine how far you can fly? How ’bout making sure the gauge reads correctly and keep an eye on it thereafter and plan to set it down when it gets to 1 hour of fuel remaining by common sense judgement. Totally inexcusable to run this airplane out of fuel or for that matter any airplane. It’s one thing to stretch a ground vehicle’s range while looking at a gauge bumping up against the “E” but when you defy gravity and take to flight it’s essential to keep in mind that gravity ALWAYS wins when the fan stops turning for lack of fuel to the engine. Headwork, headwork, headwork!
You can find the address of your local FSDO here:
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/
Put your pilot certificate in an envelope and mail it to them.
Send this one to Oklahoma City! Plain truth!??
I own a 182 I can flyfor five hours plus reserve.my question is how can you run out of fuel?
When in doubt, don’t!
Sad that such a callous decision seemed to have been made in regards to a very important part of flight planning.
Where was common sense within the framework of the Regulations ?