FTW96FA130 · Cessna 182R
Civil Air Patrol Cessna 182R and Cessna 170A · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96FA130
- 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
- 4 · 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 182R
- 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
- N9303E
- Operator
- Civil Air Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Memphis Municipal Airport (AWM), West Memphis, ARTo Forrest City Municipal Airport (FCY), Forrest City, AR
- 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 · Cessna 170A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N9523A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT), Little Rock, ARTo West Memphis Municipal Airport (AWM), West Memphis, AR
- 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 of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses on Interstate 40 observed both airplanes traveling in opposite directions on a collision course at an estimated altitude of 1,000 feet above the ground. The witnesses further stated that the pilots of both airplanes attempted to avoid the collision by banking to their left. They observed one wing and debris fall to the ground as 'both airplanes nosed dived to the ground.' The airplanes came to rest in a nose down attitude on cultivated fields about 1/2 mile apart. The collision occurred in class G airspace approximately 7 miles west of an uncontrolled airport served with Unicom. The Cessna 182 was headed westbound and the Cessna 170 was on an easterly heading to enter the traffic pattern at the airport. The visibility in the vicinity of the accident was estimated to be in excess of 20 miles. An airline transport rated pilot, who witnessed the accident, reported the presence of high cirrus clouds and said 'the sun was setting but the clouds were obstructing the sun so there was no glare.' Both airplanes were equipped with 2-way radio communication; however, the frequencies being monitored by the pilot of each airplane could not be determined due to damage.
Probable cause
failure of the pilots in both airplanes to see-and-avoid conflicting traffic (inadequate visual lookout).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96FA130
- Event ID
- 20001208X05240
- Case number
- FTW96FA130
- 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: b4ada806118b2b3b75cb1748183ec15bc8665f495091a82c1299c1699b7fb50e; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:25:12.081Z.