SEA96LA173 · Cessna 182G
Cessna 182G · Accident: vortex turbulence encountered on approach
From Roberts Field (RDM) to Portland International Airport (PDX)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA173
- 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 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
- N3135S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roberts Field (RDM), Redmond, ORTo Portland International Airport (PDX)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Vortex turbulence encountered
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The tower controller instructed the Cessna 182 pilot to expedite his visual flight rules (VFR) approach and follow an MD-80 airliner on straight-in final. The Cessna pilot reported the MD-80 in sight (at 2.3 to 3.6 nautical miles) and complied with the instructions. The Cessna encountered the MD-80's wake turbulence about 200 feet above ground level on final; the pilot lost control and the aircraft crashed. Radar data showed that the Cessna closed to approximately 0.9 miles behind the MD-80, and descended 200 feet below the MD-80's glide path (contrary to wake turbulence avoidance guidance in the FAA's Aeronautical Information Manual [AIM]). A 4-mile minimum separation distance would have been required for radar separation, but no minimum distance was required for visual separation. The AIM states that controllers are required to apply minimum landing separation distances for wake turbulence, without distinguishing between visual and radar separation environments. In February 1994, the NTSB issued recommendations to the FAA indicating a belief that VFR aircraft should observe instrument flight rules (IFR) wake turbulence separation distances.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a proper glide path above the MD-80's wake turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA173
- Event ID
- 20001208X06385
- Case number
- SEA96LA173
- 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 1996-07-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ea521224f38b1eca030e3f4b88e6c788921f67a98f113c930c020213db69def7; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:38:25.379Z.