FTW99FA075 · Cessna 182B
Cessna 182B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From O8E · TX to MIDKIFF, TX (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99FA075
- 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
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 5 · 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 182B
- 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
- N54FC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O8E · TXTo MIDKIFF, TX (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Two witnesses observed the single-engine airplane take off into the dark night on a bearing of 340 degrees. The wreckage was found the next morning approximately three miles from the departure end of the runway on gently rising terrain at an elevation of 2,978 feet MSL. The elevation of the departure airport was 2,381 feet MSL. The aircraft was found severely fragmented along a 625-foot energy path bearing 360 degrees. All components of the aircraft were found within the energy path. A field examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal evidence of any pre-impact anomalies. Flight control continuity could not be established due to the fragmentation of the airframe. However, the control cables were examined, and each exhibited overload in the segments that were broken. Toxicology tests on the pilot were negative, and no pre-existing medical conditions were found during an autopsy that would have contributed to the accident. The estimated weight and balance for the airplane was within limits.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to obtain/maintain clearance from terrain during initial climb after take off. A contributing factor was the dark night.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99FA075
- Event ID
- 20001205X00157
- Case number
- FTW99FA075
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-02-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7a86e51387003445b89290ad128d58b86df18fcb1ca34ec03ddaf0bd69e77c11; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:14:46.992Z.