Incident Overview
The pilot of a Cessna 182A reported that he departed for a parachute jump flight with 12 gallons of fuel. After the parachute jumpers exited the airplane at about 10,500 feet mean sea level (MSL), he initiated a left spiraling descent back to the airport. During the descent, he heard and felt the engine quiet down as if it was shutting down. He then began right descending turns and verified that the fuel selector was in the "both" position. Noticing that the cylinder head temperature was decreasing, he switched back to left descending turns, and the fuel starvation due to banking occurred two more times.
Forced Landing
Entering left downwind at about 4,000 feet MSL, the pilot pushed the throttle and mixture controls full forward but determined that the engine was not producing much power. During short final, he realized the airplane was too low and landed on a highway on-ramp. During the forced landing, the airplane impacted a guard rail and a post.
Damage and Postaccident Examination
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings. The pilot reported that he suspected engine power loss due to fuel exhaustion. During a postaccident examination, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector drained about 12 gallons of fuel from both wing tanks and the gascolator.
Relevant Manual Information
According to the Description section of the Cessna 182A Owner's Manual, there are 1.5 gallons of unusable fuel per fuel tank (3 gallons total) and an additional 3.5 gallons of unusable fuel per fuel tank (10 gallons total) when not in level flight.