ATL97FA092 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Georgetown County Airport (GGE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97FA092
- 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
- 2 · 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 182
- 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
- N8683T
- Operator
- David L. Hodge · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Georgetown County Airport (GGE), Georgetown, SCTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Aircraft control, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was a local search and rescue mission that departed from Georgetown, SC in visual meteorological conditions. According to FSS personnel, the pilot did not receive a weather briefing or file a flight plan. While in contact with Charleston Approach Control, the pilot reported instrument conditions and requested assistance. The air traffic controllers gave him a number of different headings in order to remain clear of the instrument conditions. After the pilot advised that he had less than 30 minutes of fuel left on board, the controller advised the pilot to fly, wings level, through the clouds for 10 miles in order to reach the nearest airport. While in the clouds, the pilot stated, 'What's happening to me'. At 1756:38, radio and radar contact was lost about 28 miles southeast of Charleston, SC. The airplane was found 3/6/97 but it was not recovered. The noninstrument-rated private pilot and his passenger are presumed to have received fatal injuries.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot's failure to remain clear of instrument meteorological conditions which led to spatial disorientation and loss of aircraft control. A factor was the pilot's failure to obtain a weather briefing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97FA092
- Event ID
- 20001208X07131
- Case number
- ATL97FA092
- 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: 0bbacc4654cac2dc15c40df14b8369b7a2f19d45587b1f62227c39b859f931e4; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:05:50.158Z.