FTW00FA154 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 and Cessna 182L · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00FA154
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N45973
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport (OUN), Norman, OKTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 182L
- 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
- N974SR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport (OUN), Norman, OKTo F39 · Sherman, TX
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Visual lookout, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Cessna 152 departed the airport to the southeast for the local training area to practice commercial flight maneuvers. The Cessna 182 departed the same airport approximately 9 minutes after the Cessna 152 on a cross-country flight. Radar data depicted the Cessna 182 at an altitude of 2,000 feet agl heading to the southeast. Altitude data was not available from the Cessna 152, however, radar track data depicted a figure-eight pattern. At the time of the last radar returns, the targets were about 12 nm southeast of the departure airport, and the Cessna 152 was approximately 1/4 nm southeast of the Cessna 182. The Cessna 152 was heading to the west, and the Cessna 182 was heading to the southeast. The Cessna 152 spinner tip was found imbedded in the left main landing gear attachment point of the Cessna 182. The Cessna 182 left wing strut was severed 9 inches from the fuselage attachment point. The sever was perpendicular to the length of the strut. The Cessna 182's left wing was found between the Cessna 152 and Cessna 182 wreckage. The Cessna 182's left main landing gear and the Cessna 152's propeller were not located.
Probable cause
the failure of both pilots to maintain visual lookout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00FA154
- Event ID
- 20001212X20989
- Case number
- FTW00FA154
- 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: b0907fe1544f4d09d5ac5c991025f7fe7f41401ae736d3c4be304ab32303e539; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:12:28.245Z.