SEA95LA033 · Cessna 182
Owyhee County Sheriff Cessna 182 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Murphy Airport (1U3) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95LA033
- 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
- 0 · 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 182
- 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
- N9107X
- Operator
- Owyhee County Sheriff
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Murphy Airport (1U3), IDTo not recorded
- 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 · descent
- 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 maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER THE COMPLETION OF AN AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE MISSION, THE PILOT WAS DESCENDING INTO THE AIRPORT OF ORIGINAL DEPARTURE. BECAUSE THIS WAS A DARK NIGHT, AND THERE WERE NO GROUND REFERENCES EXCEPT THE LIGHTS AT A MUNICIPAL BUILDING NEAR THE AIRPORT, THE PILOT USED A LORAN-BASED ALTITUDE/DISTANCE STEP-DOWN PROCEDURE TO MAINTAIN TERRAIN CLEARANCE DURING THE DESCENT. WHILE DESCENDING INTO A 40 KNOT HEADWIND, WITHOUT USING THE LANDING LIGHT, THE PILOT LOOKED INSIDE THE AIRCRAFT TO SET UP FOR THE LANDING. JUST AFTER HE LOOKED INSIDE, THE PASSENGER YELLED THAT THE LIGHTS NEAR THE AIRPORT HAD DISAPPEARED. ABOUT ONE SECOND LATER, AS BOTH THE PILOT AND PASSENGER WERE PULLING BACK ON THE YOKE, THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED A RIDGE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE/CLEARANCE FROM THE TERRAIN. FACTORS INCLUDE A DARK NIGHT AND A STRONG HEADWIND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95LA033
- Event ID
- 20001206X02803
- Case number
- SEA95LA033
- 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 1994-12-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d479a2596face3c6abf64256dd017ad340bc745d30a388efb3bf1d94651512e9; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:28:15.170Z.