BFO92FA133 · Cessna 182R
Cessna 182R · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Francis S Gabreski Airport (FOK) to Westerly State Airport (WST)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92FA133
- 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
- 2 · 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 182R
- 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
- N5533N
- Operator
- Arthur W Case · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Francis S Gabreski Airport (FOK), WESTHAMPTON BCH, NYTo Westerly State Airport (WST), Westerly, RI
- 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 · descent
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Westerly, RI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE TAKEOFF, THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED 79 YEAR OLD PILOT RECEIVED TWO PREFLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING. HE WAS ADVISED THAT VFR FLIGHT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. THE PILOT DEPARTED WITH HIS WIFE TO ATTEND A FAMILY GATHERING IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN, WITH A PLANNED STOP IN WESTERLY, RHODE ISLAND, TO PICK UP RADIO EQUIPMENT. SEGMENTS OF THE FLIGHT WERE OVER WATER. DURING THE FLIGHT, THE PILOT WAS IN RADIO CONTACT WITH GROTON-NEW LONDON TOWER. HE INDICATED ON HIS LAST TRANSMISSION THAT HE WAS DESCENDING INTO WESTERLY. THE AIRCRAFT DID NOT REACH THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. A SEARCH WAS INITIATED AFTER DEBRIS WAS FOUND BY A FISHERMAN. THE AIRCRAFT WAS LOCATED 5 DAYS LATER IN ABOUT 50 FEET OF WATER ABOUT 5 MILES SOUTH OF THE AIRPORT. ABOUT 15 MILES SOUTH OF WESTERLY AT BLOCK ISLAND STATE AIRPORT, AN AIRPORT ATTENDANT REPORTED A LOW CEILING AND FOG, WHICH PREVENTED INBOUND AND OUTBOUND FLIGHT TO WESTERLY.
Probable cause
INADVERTENT VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT DUE TO SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, SELF-INDUCED PRESSURE ON THE PILOT TO MAKE THE FLIGHT, AND THE PILOT'S LACK OF INSTRUMENT EXPEREINCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92FA133
- Event ID
- 20001211X15603
- Case number
- BFO92FA133
- 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: 1989d008a3fa058a2561c7abe637509905ed3a359992601ec6e8f4194e00cc77; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:57:23.157Z.