NTSB CAROL · Event
Event CEN10LA186
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
A fire of undetermined origin.
Factual narrative
On April 1, 2010, about 1650 central standard time, a Cessna C-182F airplane, N3320U, was substantially damaged after catching fire during taxi for takeoff at Kickapoo Downtown Airport (CWC), Wichita Falls, Texas. The commercial pilot was not injured. The business flight was being conducted under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The pilot stated he was taxiing to the runway when he smelled an “electrical” smell in the cockpit. He then saw smoke coming from the instrument panel. He stopped the airplane and shut it down. As he exited the airplane he saw black smoke and flames coming from the instrument panel. The fire consumed most of the airplane fuselage aft of the engine firewall. The airplane maintenance records were in the airplane at the time of the accident and were consumed by the fire. According to the mechanic who performed regular maintenance on the airplane, the last annual inspection had occurred in March of 2009, and a new engine, battery, and landing light had been installed about 18 flight hours prior to the accident. A postaccident examination of the wreckage was conducted by NTSB investigators. The origin of the fire could not be determined. The pilot stated that he was taxiing to the runway when he smelled an electrical odor in the cockpit and then saw smoke coming from the instrument panel. He stopped the airplane and shut it down. As he exited the airplane, he saw black smoke and flames coming from the instrument panel. The fire consumed most of the airplane fuselage aft of the engine firewall. The origin of the fire could not be determined. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- — Aircraft-Aircraft systems-(general)-(general)-Not specified
- C Not determined-Not determined-(general)-(general)-Unknown/Not determined - C
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2010_CEN10LA186.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall, maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2023 · Conference paper
The Value of Strong Partnerships to Build a Successful Aviation Maintenance Career Pathway Program for Transitioning Military Service Members
The aerospace industry is competing with other industries for a qualified workforce, and many of those competing industries are investing heavily in creating workforce development pipelines.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2026 · Journal article (IJAAA)
From Reactive to Predictive: A hybrid Trust-Mediated Adoption Framework for Data-Driven Maintenance in Distributed-Authority Aviation Environments
Modern aviation maintenance operates within increasingly data-intensive technological environments, yet the operational integration of predictive maintenance into routine decision-making remains incon…
- NASA NTRS 2026 · Conference Paper
Computational Analysis of Steady State Aerodynamics of Transonic Truss-Braced Wing Configuration in Deep Stall
This study presents a computational investigation of steady state aerodynamics of the Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) configuration over a wide range …
- Semantic Scholar 2025 · Article (Applied Sciences)
Decision-Making Framework for Aviation Safety in Predictive Maintenance Strategies
The implementation of predictive maintenance (PM) in aviation presents unique challenges due to strict safety requirements, complex operational environments, and regulatory constraints.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (JAAER)
Low-Resource Automatic Speech Recognition Domain Adaptation – A Case-Study in Aviation Maintenance
With timeliness and efficiency being critical in the aviation maintenance industry, the need has been growing for smart technological solutions that optimize and streamline the different underlying ta…
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (JAAER)
A New Trajectory in UAV Safety: Leveraging Reinforcement Learning for Distance Maintenance Under Wind Variations
In the field of aviation, safety is a critical cornerstone, and the operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems is deeply connected with this principle.
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