FTW94FA028 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Halliburton Field (DUC) to Wiley Post Airport (PWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94FA028
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N182JS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Halliburton Field (DUC), Duncan, OKTo Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Oklahoma City, OK
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- 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
- Flight/nav instruments, directional gyro › Inoperative
- Flight/nav instruments, turn and bank indicator › Inoperative
- Vacuum system › Inoperative
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE FLIGHT, THE PILOT INDICATED HE DID NOT WANT TO FLY IN IMC. HE WAS BRIEFED ON WEATHER, WEST OF HIS ROUTE, & TOLD THAT CEILINGS WOULD BE LOWERING TO IMC. AT 2017:53, HE CONTACTED ATC, REQUESTED WEATHER INFO & SAID HE WAS 'TRYING TO STAY VISUAL.' AT 2019:37, HE REPORTED IN IMC & REQUESTED AN IFR CLEARANCE. HE WAS GIVEN THE WEATHER & CLEARANCE. HE SUBSEQUENTLY REPORTED THAT HE HAD TO CONCENTRATE ON FLYING THE AIRPLANE. AT 2024:05, THE PILOT STATED HE HAD A VACUUM PROBLEM AND A 'PANEL SITUATION.' THE CONTROLLER THEN SAID HE HAD A FLIGHT PLAN CHANGE, BUT THE PILOT RESPONDED 'I'M GOING TO HAVE TO FLY THE AIRPLANE.' SOON THEREAFTER, CONTACT WITH THE PLANE WAS LOST & IT CRASHED IN AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT. METALLURGICAL EXAM INDICATED THE VACUUM DRIVEN TURN & BANK INDICATOR AND DIRECTIONAL GYRO INSTRUMENTS WERE NOT ROTATING AT THE TIME OF IMPACT. THE ATTITUDE GYRO EXHIBITED ROTATIONAL IMPACT SIGNATURES, BUT ITS ROTATION SPEED WAS NOT VERIFIED. THE DIRECTIONAL GYRO ROTOR WAS CAPABLE OF ROTATION ABOUT THE CENTRAL SHAFT.
Probable cause
AN INOPERATIVE VACUUM SYSTEM, AN INOPERATIVE TURN & BANK INDICATOR, AND AN INOPERATIVE DIRECTIONAL GYRO, WHICH RESULTED IN AN INABILITY OF THE PILOT TO CONTROL THE AIRPLANE AFTER IT ENCOUNTERED INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC). FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS, FOG, AND DRIZZLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94FA028
- Event ID
- 20001211X13726
- Case number
- FTW94FA028
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-11-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9159a1365e0e36e7e8838a91b2e3174ca6546aa2f092abfb7712867ecb4d0b6b; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:19:36.721Z.