MIA97FA162 · Cessna R182
Cessna R182 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Richmond Executive-Chesterfield County Airport (FCI) to Grand Strand Airport (CRE)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97FA162
- 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
- 1 · 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 R182
- 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
- N9080C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richmond Executive-Chesterfield County Airport (FCI), Richmond, VATo Grand Strand Airport (CRE)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall; Tree(s)
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of North Myrtle Beach, SC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot's first approach was 'too high and too fast' for a successful landing and the pilot executed a go-around. The sound of a gear warning horn could be heard in the background of the tower tape when the pilot reported the go-around. The pilot then flew a wide pattern and turned onto final approach about 4 miles from the end of the runway. Witnesses observed the airplane touch down, then bounce up and make a climbing right turn above the treetops. According to several witnesses, after the airplane did what appeared to some as a 'touch and go' landing, the airplane went into a 'very steep climb,' and reached an altitude of 75 to 100 feet above the ground. A pilot who witnessed the accident said he thought the airplane 'was a banner tow plane making a pick-up.' He saw the airplane in a nose low attitude, and as it approached the trees it pitched up again. The airplane continued to descend in a pitched up attitude until the right wing dropped and the aircraft descended into the trees in a right bank. Most of the witnesses agreed that the airplane appeared to lose forward airspeed while in a steep climb.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed during a go-around resulting in an inadvertent stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97FA162
- Event ID
- 20001208X07970
- Case number
- MIA97FA162
- 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: e76be8cdb29e4f61d9ff9a436dbce7ae3c5fa87334424209491836efb2a09f51; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:57:50.564Z.