CHI92LA283 · Cessna 182B
Cessna 182B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Y78 · Milwaukee, WI to Lake Elmo Airport (21D)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92LA283
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182B
- 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
- N90BF
- Operator
- Allan E. Johnson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Y78 · Milwaukee, WITo Lake Elmo Airport (21D), Lake Elmo, MN
- 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 · 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
- 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
- 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 › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR procedures, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE ENCOUNTERED INSTRUMENT CONDITIONS (IMC) DURING CRUISE FLIGHT AT NIGHT. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES AND TERRAIN AS THE PILOT WAS ATTEMPTING TO RETURN TO VISUAL FLIGHT CONDITIONS. CRUISE ALTITUDE WAS 2200 FEET. THE NEAREST WEATHER OBSERVATION FACILITY WAS APPROXIMATELY 20 MILES WEST OF THE ACCIDENT SITE AND 705 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL (MSL). 45 MINUTES BEFORE THE ACCIDENT THEY REPORTED A 1200 FOOT CEILING. VISIBILITY WAS 7 MILES. THE ELEVATION IN THE ACCIDENT AREA VARIES BETWEEN 1100 AND 1300 FEET MSL. FORECASTS OBTAINED BY THE PILOT PRIOR TO HIS DEPARTURE CALLED FOR MARGINAL VISUAL FLIGHT CONDITIONS DUE TO CEILINGS. THE PILOT STATED HE WAS PARALLELING A HIGHWAY AND USING THE LIGHTS FROM VEHICLES TO JUDGE VISIBILITY. THE LIGHTS BECAME OBSCURED BY CLOUDS AND THE PILOT STARTED A 180 DEGREE TURN. DURING THE TURN THE VISIBILITY WENT TO ZERO. HE TRIED TO REGAIN OUTSIDE VISUAL REFERENCE. WHEN HE LOOKED AT THE INSTRUMENTS THE AIRPLANE WAS IN A LEFT WING LOW DIVE. HE REDUCED POWER, LEVELED, AND PULLED UP THE NOSE. AS THE AIRPLANE LEVELED THEY BROKE OUT OF THE CLOUDS. THE PILOT SAW THE TREE LINE JUST BEFORE COLLISION.
Probable cause
SPATIAL DISORIENTATION AS THE PILOT ATTEMPTED VISUAL FLIGHT PROCEDURES IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92LA283
- Event ID
- 20001211X15665
- Case number
- CHI92LA283
- 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 1992-09-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9ba864a33c0a91f1457c6611fc2f3991e28a233b1b5456787fe031ba68129490; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:07:15.985Z.