FTW96LA387 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From Drake Field (FYV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA387
- 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 182Q
- 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
- N97685
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Drake Field (FYV), Fayetteville, ARTo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 touchdown point, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the private grass airstrip was about 1,900 feet long with an uphill gradient and portions of the runway aligned with trees about 50 to 60 feet in height. The pilot stated that the wind was light and variable. A final approach speed of 70 knots was maintained with full flaps extended for the landing. During the landing flare, 'a gust from around the trees pitched the airplane up and it went further down the runway.' With trees at the departure end of the runway, the pilot committed to the landing. The airplane touched down about mid-field in 'slick, mowed grass, and as the brakes were applied, the airplane hydroplaned on the grass.' The pilot attempted to ground loop the airplane in an effort to miss hitting the trees; however, the airplane slid sideways and the left wing struck a tree about 10 inches in diameter. Structural damage occurred at the firewall, engine mounts, and left wing.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to obtain the proper touchdown point on the runway. Factors were gust and the slick, mowed grass runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA387
- Event ID
- 20001208X06733
- Case number
- FTW96LA387
- 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: e577aa393f4907400554386edbd9b0df689b3b26ba16be2c651bfa52fd727cb5; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:10:55.901Z.