SEA94FA100 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Winnemucca Municipal Airport (WMC) to Southwest Washington Regional Airport (KLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94FA100
- 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
- 2 · 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 182Q
- 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
- N4887N
- Operator
- White, Woodrow · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winnemucca Municipal Airport (WMC), Winnemucca, NVTo Southwest Washington Regional Airport (KLS), Longview, WA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE WAS ON A NIGHT FLIGHT FROM A REFUELING STOP AT WINNEMUCCA, NV, TO A REPORTED DESTINATION OF THE LONGVIEW, WA. THE PERSON THAT HELPED SERVICE THE AIRPLANE AT WINNEMUCCA NOTED NOTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT THE PLANE OR EITHER OF THE OCCUPANTS. AFTER DEPARTING WINNEMUCCA, THERE WERE NO REPORTED SIGHTINGS OR CONTACT WITH THE PLANE UNTIL IT REACHED THE AREA OF THE DALLES, OR, WHERE NUMEROUS WITNESSES SAW THE PLANE MANEUVERING. MOST WITNESSES DESCRIBED SEEING THE PLANE IN A CONTINUOUS SERIES OF LOW-LEVEL ERRATIC MANEUVERS WITH REPEATED SHORT TERM RAPID CLIMBS AND DESCENTS. ONE WITNESS SAID THE MOVEMENTS OF THE PLANE WERE SIMILAR TO THAT OF A PILOT PRACTICING STALLS. THOSE, WHO HEARD THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE DESCRIBED IT AS SURGING, SPUTTERING, OR CONSTANTLY CHANGING FROM IDLE TO FULL POWER. SHORTLY BEFORE CRASHING, ONE WITNESS SAW THE AIRPLANE SO LOW THAT IT APPEARED TO BE LANDING. AFTER MANEUVERING FOR ABOUT 10 MINUTES, THE PLANE ROLLED INTO A STEEP DESCENT AND CRASHED. IMPACT OCCURRED ABOUT 6 MILES WEST OF THE DALLES AIRPORT. DURING AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE, NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS FOUND; HOWEVER, THE AIRPLANE WAS EXTENSIVELY DAMAGED BY IMPACT. A PATHOLOGICAL EXAM OF THE PILOT REVEALED NO MEDICAL PROBLEM; HIS 3RD CLASS MEDICAL CERTIFICATE WAS DATED 3/10/92.
Probable cause
AN INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94FA100
- Event ID
- 20001206X01170
- Case number
- SEA94FA100
- 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 1994-04-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2a60b3077aaeea0fca4bfa477d5a4fe48483a5b18df3955d3318ccf3eaca54e1; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:11:52.238Z.