LAX93LA309 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water
From Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA309
- 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 182P
- 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
- N8185M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL), S. LAKE TAHOE, CATo 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
- Unknown
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE HAD BEEN STOLEN FROM A FLYING CLUB. THE PILOT HAD ALSO BROKEN INTO ANOTHER AIRPLANE PARKED ADJACENT TO THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE AND LEFT A BOTTLE OF RUM. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN ABOUT 6 MI SE OF DAYTON. THE PILOT'S TOXICOLOGICAL RESULTS WERE POSITIVE FOR ALCOHOL; ETHANOL WAS DETECTED IN THE PILOT'S BLOOD, VITREOUS FLUID, AND BILE AT CONCENTRATIONS OF 79 MG/DL (0.079%), 113 MG/DL (0.113%), AND 97 MG/DL (0.097%), RESPECTIVELY. IN ADDITION, CHLORDIAZEPOXIDE AND NORDIAZEPAM WERE DETECTED IN THE PILOT'S BLOOD AND LIVER. CONCENTRATION OF CHLORDIAZEPOXIDE IN THE BLOOD WAS 0.864 UG/DL, CONCENTRATION OF NORDIAZEPAM IN THE LIVER WAS 0.996 UG/DL. CHLORDIAZEPOXIDE SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN IN CONJUNCTION WITH ALCOHOL USE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AN ALTITUDE SUFFICIENT TO CLEAR TERRAIN DUE TO ALCOHOL AND DRUG IMPAIRMENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA309
- Event ID
- 20001211X12968
- Case number
- LAX93LA309
- 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: 0b485d604d65f04f484ff4c455469f48a24776a1ea5e4a3dc0c802d3b16c2100; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:26:46.677Z.