SEA92LA146 · Cessna 182Q
Cogswell Agency Cessna 182Q · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during landing
From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA92LA146
- 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 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
- N97046
- Operator
- Cogswell Agency
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MTTo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT THE END OF A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE WAS INTENDING TO LAND ON A PRIVATE AIRSTRIP THAT HE HAD NOT BEEN INTO BEFORE. THE DAY BEFORE THE FLIGHT, THE PILOT HAD CONTACTED THE OWNER FOR DIRECTIONS AND THE CONDITION OF THE STRIP. WHEN THE FLIGHT ARRIVED, THE PILOT FOUND AN AREA THAT LOOKED LIKE WHAT THE OWNER HAD DESCRIBED. THE PILOT NOTED THAT THE FIELD LOOKED WET, SO A SOFT FIELD LANDING WAS INITIATED. WHILE ON SHORT FINAL, THE PILOT NOTED THAT THE SURFACE WAS VERY ROUGH. THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN AND WAS ALMOST STOPPED WHEN THE NOSE WHEEL BOUNCED ON A MOUND OF DIRT. WHEN THE NOSE WHEEL CONTACTED THE SURFACE, IT SUNK INTO THE SOFT SOIL AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER. LATER, THE PILOT FOUND OUT THAT THE AREA WHERE HE HAD LANDED WAS, IN FACT, NOT THE AIRSTRIP, BUT A CONSTRUCTION SITE FOR A RAILROAD OPERATION.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE IN FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION. FACTORS TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: UNSUITABLE TERRAIN WAS SELECTED, ROUGH/UNEVEN TERRAIN AND A GO AROUND WAS NOT PERFORMED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA92LA146
- Event ID
- 20001211X15252
- Case number
- SEA92LA146
- 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: 6e562da8e9045eaf4f034f03b30a6378300f1c81d82f211d3637920df5a444eb; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:58:12.673Z.