IAD98LA031 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From PA (no airport) to N31 · Kutztown, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD98LA031
- 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 182A
- 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
- N9977B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PA (no airport)To N31 · Kutztown, PA
- 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
- In flight 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After an off airport landing, the glider pilot called for assistance. A certificated flight instructor (CFI) drove to the site to assess towing the glider from the field. The CFI estimated the field to be 1,000 feet long and oriented northwest/southeast. The northwest edge of the field terminated at the edge of a field of 4 foot high corn. After arriving in the C-182, the tow and glider pilots agreed that the field length was satisfactory. With one notch of flaps set, a quarter tank of fuel in both wing tanks, and utilizing a shorter tow rope, the tow airplane accelerated with the engine producing full power. The glider was airborne halfway across the field, but released when the glider pilot saw the tow airplane approaching the corn field. After the glider released, the tow airplane pitched nose-up, and the tow pilot last remembered pushing forward on the yoke. The airplane came to rest in a vertical, nose down attitude, against small trees at the bottom of a ravine. Corn stalks, about 4 feet high, contained a cut area the width of the airplane's elevator. Pieces of corn stalks were found lodged between the airplane's stabilator and elevator. No mechanical malfunctions were found in the airframe or engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the aircraft upon glider release. A contributing factor was the high vegetation (corn).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD98LA031
- Event ID
- 20001211X09690
- Case number
- IAD98LA031
- 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: 00765295a0237ddd6e7198b479db51322d865db6a806710d01af116573f40a05; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:54:32.350Z.