MIA94FA015 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Mobile Regional Airport (MOB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94FA015
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182Q
- 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
- N97450
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mobile Regional Airport (MOB), Mobile, ALTo 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
- Approach · IFR initial approach
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Incapacitation(loss of consciousness)
- Pilot in command › Incapacitation(other cardiovascular)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses observed the aircraft flying low along the approach course through the clouds with the landing light on and with the engine operating normally. They heard the aircraft contact trees several times and then crash to the ground, followed by several explosions. Examination of the aircraft structure, flight controls, engine, and vacuum pump revealed no evidence to indicate precrash failure or malfunction. The medical examiner reported the pilot had 'severely restrictive coronary artery disease and no evidence of fire inhalation or premortem fractures of the skull, spine, ribs, or limbs.' He further reported 'it appears likely, in view of the coronary disease, that the victim might well have suffered a heart seizure and lost awareness.' Post mortem toxicology tests indicated the pilot was taking metoprolol and naproxen which had been subscribed to him by his doctor for hypertension. The pilot had not reported his hypertension or use of the medications to the FAA. He had an FAA medical exam 2 days before the accident.
Probable cause
WAS INCAPACITATION OF THE PILOT DUE TO CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE DURING AN INSTRUMENT APPROACH RESULTING IN THE AIRCRAFT DESCENDING UNCONTROLLED UNTIL TREE AND GROUND IMPACT. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S DECISION TO FLY WITH KNOWN CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94FA015
- Event ID
- 20001211X13772
- Case number
- MIA94FA015
- 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 1993-11-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2e50e08f3163bd54c8e34298d0942e3a167e5541d903d4c6428b599d3f9837e9; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:19:52.692Z.