CHI96LA328 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS) to Capitol Drive Airport (02C)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA328
- 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 182P
- 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
- N6590M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS)To Capitol Drive Airport (02C), Brookfield, WI
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Planned approach, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not obtained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff on runway 30L the pilot noted oil on the windshield. He contacted ATC and was cleared to land on any runway. The pilot chose runway 04 as he was 'anxious' to land the airplane. The airplane touched down off the left side of the runway, bounced up onto the runway and off the right side. It bounced again contacting runway lights on the right side of the runway. The airplane slowed as it traveled into the grass off the right side of the runway. The pilot regained control of the airplane and taxied back to the runway, then onto the taxiway. Postaccident inspection revealed the clip, which connected the oil filler cap to the chain, was binding. This could have given the false sensation that the filler cap was secured when in fact it may not have been. The oil filter and oil had been changed just prior to this flight. The pilot stated he checked the oil during the preflight after which he secured the cap.
Probable cause
the pilot misjudged his planned approach during the precautionary landing and the failed to obtain a proper touchdown point. Factors relating to the accident were: the loose oil filler cap, the uneven terrain on which the landing was made, the runway lights which were contacted, and the pilot's anxiety concerning the loss of oil and its effect on possible engine problems.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA328
- Event ID
- 20001208X06693
- Case number
- CHI96LA328
- 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: cc11e5e54248179105d0ee3324c8a3ea96007b5c32a39b0441e07407d82a08ab; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:15:10.124Z.