ATL95FA003 · Cessna 182L
Winterset Flying Club Cessna 182L · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Cairo Regional Airport (CIR) to LaGrange Callaway Airport (LGC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL95FA003
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182L
- 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
- N3499R
- Operator
- Winterset Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cairo Regional Airport (CIR), Cairo, ILTo LaGrange Callaway Airport (LGC), LaGrange, GA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE COMMERCIAL PILOT AND HIS PASSENGER WERE FLYING VFR FROM CAIRO, IL. TO LAGRANGE, GA. WHILE RECEIVING VECTORS AROUND RESTRICTED AIRSPACE IN THE HUNTSVILLE, AL. AREA, THE PILOT REPORTED TO ATC THAT HE HAD BEEN 'IN AND OUT OF THE CLOUDS'. THE PILOT CONTINUED ON ROUTE, VFR, AFTER HUNTSVILLE TERMINATED RADAR SERVICE. THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND ON THE SIDE OF STEEP, MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. THERE WERE NO EYEWITNESSES LOCATED. WRECKAGE AND TREE DAMAGE WAS INDICATIVE OF A LEVEL FLIGHT, WINGS LEVEL COLLISION WITH TERRAIN. THE CLOSEST WEATHER OBSERVATION SITE WAS ANNISTON, AL. (612 FT MSL, 11 MILES SOUTHEAST OF THE ACCIDENT SITE). AT ABOUT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, THEY REPORTED A CEILING OF 800 FEET BROKEN, 1,500 FEET BROKEN, 2,000 FEET OVERCAST, WITH 4 MILES VISIBILITY, IN LIGHT DRIZZLE AND FOG. THE ELEVATION OF THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS ABOUT 1,900 FEET MSL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC CONDITIONS, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN A PROPER ALTITUDE OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS WERE THE LOW CEILING, FOG, AND DRIZZLE WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AT THE ACCIDENT SITE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL95FA003
- Event ID
- 20001206X02372
- Case number
- ATL95FA003
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b719e62cf2a8e77ac6b666e42b0199100f968f28572a4a4cdc919c4cbae61aae; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:59:08.631Z.