LAX91FA093 · Cessna TR182
Del Monte Aviation Cessna TR182 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA093
- 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 TR182
- 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
- N2415S
- Operator
- Del Monte Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS), Sonoma, CATo 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 · VFR go-around
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE 158 HOUR TOTAL TIME PRIVATE PILOT PLANNED AN 18 NM NIGHT TIME FLIGHT TO VISIT A FRIEND. THE PILOT HAD LIMITED EXPERIENCE FLYING ON INSTRUMENTS, HAVING ONLY 2.6 HOURS OF INSTRUMENT FLYING TIME. ON THE NIGHT OF THE ACCIDENT IT WAS DARK. THE UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT WAS SHROUDED IN GROUND FOG AND LOW LEVEL CLOUDS EXISTED NEARBY. THE SKY WAS OBSCURED. THE NON INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT MADE A LOW PASS OVER THE RUNWAY AND PROBABLY ATTEMPTED TO LAND. THE PILOT ABORTED HIS ATTEMPT, OVERFLEW THE RUNWAY'S END AND INITIATED A GO-AROUND CLIMB. THE AIRPLANE GAINED 150 TO 200 FEET ALTITUDE AND ENTERED THE BASE OF CLOUDS, ACCORDING TO AN EYEWITNESS. THE WITNESS STATED THAT HE THEN LOST VISUAL CONTACT WITH THE AIRPLANE. A FEW SECONDS LATER THE AIRPLANE REAPPEARED, AND IT WAS DESCENDING AT ABOUT AN 80 DEGREE ANGLE. THE AIRPLANE CRASHED ABOUT 1600 FEET FROM THE END OF THE RUNWAY.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT FLIGHT INTO IMC AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRCRAFT CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT RELATED TO THE PILOT BECOMING DISORIENTED IN THE DARK, NIGHTTIME, INSTRUMENT WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND TO THE PILOT'S LIMITED EXPERIENCE FLYING IN SUCH CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA093
- Event ID
- 20001212X16456
- Case number
- LAX91FA093
- 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 1991-02-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6bd95adc17d06e370e8ea83def5c8abbb2d8dd3a178b0b720f25bd97e64e560a; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:58:49.859Z.