FTW96FA062 · Cessna 182G
Cessna 182G and Monarch Aviation Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96FA062
- 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
- 3 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 182G
- 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
- N3222S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rockwall Municipal Airport (F46), Rockwall, TXTo 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 · 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Piper PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N4362D
- Operator
- Monarch Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Addison Airport (ADS), Dallas, TXTo 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 · 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of a high wing Cessna 182 (N3222S) was on a personal flight, checking a newly installed navigation and communication radio. Simultaneously, two pilots in a low wing Piper PA-28 (N4362D) were on an instrument instructional flight conducting basic instrument training. According to a witness, the Cessna 182 was flying in a westerly direction and the Piper PA-28 was flying in nearly the opposite direction, when the airplanes collided. During the collision, the left wings of the airplanes separated, and the airplanes entered uncontrolled descents, and crashed. The occupants of both airplanes were fatally injured. Flight Visibility in the area was limited by localized haze and smoke. Both airplanes were equipped with 2-way radio communication, but the aircrews were not monitoring a common frequency. Both airplanes were operating in class E airspace under visual flight rules. Both airplanes were transponder equipped, but neither was under Air traffic Control. Radar data showed the transponder of the westbound Cessna was operating on code 1200 at an altitude of 2,100 feet.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot-in-command in each airplane to see-and-avoid conflicting traffic (inadequate visual lookout). The localized haze and smoke were related factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96FA062
- Event ID
- 20001207X04993
- Case number
- FTW96FA062
- 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: 75e97fe1ed9d7eab11b2d444cc9a679327ae37bf9adc073439bbaa7341b8013e; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:30:15.082Z.