IAD98FA097 · Cessna 182N
Cessna 182N · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From PVZ to Pittsburgh Northeast Airport (9G1)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD98FA097
- 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 182N
- 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
- N9282G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PVZTo Pittsburgh Northeast Airport (9G1), Tarentum, 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
- 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/spin
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to a witness, the pilot departed runway 12. Shortly after takeoff, the pilot made a right turn, followed by a left turn. The airplane impacted the ground in a vertical descent 900 feet southeast of the airport. A second witness at the airport reported that the pilot refueled, started the airplane and departed with a tailwind without completing a preflight inspection or run-up. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the engine oil filler door was bent with the secure latch found pushed in. Upon removal of the engine cowling, there was evidence of oil on the inside. The oil filler cap had separated from the oil filler neck and it was found at the base of the engine. Examination of the oil filler cap revealed that the gasket was missing. When the oil filler cap was fitted to the filler neck, it rotated 360 degrees and would not fit securely. Search efforts did not locate the gasket in the wreckage or surrounding area. Some sections of separated windshield glass also showed evidence of oil deposits. Inside the airplane were five one-quart bottles of AeroShell 10W50. All except one bottle had burst open. The opened one was empty and the cap was intact with a broken seal.. The reported winds at the time of the accident were from 330 degrees at 7 knots. Examination of the airplane and engine did not disclose any evidence of mechanical malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed, while maneuvering back toward the runway resulting in an inadvertent stall. Also causal was the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection which resulted in his failure to secure the oil filler cap. A contributing factor was his diverted attention.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD98FA097
- Event ID
- 20001211X10874
- Case number
- IAD98FA097
- 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: 440b478ce209681d0db5dd8d0109a343407b09470e8934ebabae1911cbf5e356; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:27:20.753Z.