LAX99FA220 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99FA220
- 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
- 4 · 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 182A
- 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
- N4824D
- Operator
- David Hughes
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB)To 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not complied with
- Pilot in command › Elevator trim, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane quickly became airborne and started an extremely steep climb for several hundred feet, which was followed by an equally steep descent until the airplane collided with terrain. The airplane had just completed one jump flight, and a different pilot fueled the airplane in preparation for the accident flight. The airplane was configured with one seat on the left side for the pilot and a 2-inch pad with seat belts for up to four skydivers. One skydiver was kneeling facing forward in the most aft position of the cabin, two were facing aft in the middle of the cabin, and one (the survivor) was leaning against a bulkhead in the front right position and facing aft. The survivor was secured by a lap belt and said the other jumpers were strapped in as well. His harness moved him away from the instrument panel, but his head was level with the pilot's thighs. The pilot did not do a run-up and taxied straight onto the runway for takeoff. After takeoff the survivor observed the pilot "furiously working" her right hand from liftoff to ground contact. She was reaching right but it was not determined whether she was rolling something or working her arm up and down. She maintained her normal sitting position and did not move forward or aft. One of the first rescuers noted the fatally injured pilot and the survivor were suspended by their seat belts as the airplane lay inverted; the other occupants were ejected from the airplane. The seat belt behind the pilot was dangling unbuckled when rescuers reached the airplane. When the Safety Board investigator arrived on scene, all of the belts were observed to be hanging vertically and unbuckled. Post accident investigation revealed no discrepancies with the airframe, engine, or seat belts. Both the before start and before takeoff check lists instructed the pilot to verify that the adjustable stabilizer control wheel was in the "takeoff range." The system's section noted control wheel forces would be very heavy if the stabilizer was not properly set.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to set the trim as prescribed by the published check list. This led to a steep climb angle which caused the airspeed to decay, resulting in a stall at an altitude too low to allow recovery.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99FA220
- Event ID
- 20001212X19018
- Case number
- LAX99FA220
- 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: 5eda08db1cd94991c1223c599d152b7c0538f6afad466dabf1d22d2511d6a510; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:03:05.119Z.