SEA00LA102 · Cessna 182H
Cessna 182H · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD) to Stark's Twin Oaks Airpark (7S3)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA00LA102
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182H
- 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
- N8321S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD), Troutdale, ORTo Stark's Twin Oaks Airpark (7S3)
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Flight/nav instruments, airspeed indicator › Blocked(partial)
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vref), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route to his original destination, and while diverting to his home airport, the pilot was unable to achieve the desired indicated airspeed using the throttle settings that he was accustomed to. Upon reaching the airport, due to local takeoff and landing terrain avoidance procedures, the pilot chose to land on a runway with a tailwind of approximately 10 knots. Believing that the aircraft's engine was experiencing a malfunction that reduced its ability to produce thrust, he chose to use only 20 degrees of flaps while on final. As he crossed the runway threshold, he realized that his ground speed was excessive, but elected not to go around because of the suspected engine problem and the danger of impacting the trees on rising terrain off the departure end of the runway. The aircraft touched down about half way down the wet runway, and although the pilot applied maximum braking, he was unable to stop the aircraft before it departed the far end of the runway and went over an embankment. A post-accident inspection of the engine determined that it had not malfunctioned, but multiple contaminants were found in the pitot system mast and lines. The size and structure of the contaminants were such that they interfered with the correct display of the aircraft's indicated airspeed.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain the correct approach airspeed (Vref) on final due to incorrect airspeed indications resulting from a partial blockage of the pitot line. Factors include a quartering tailwind, a wet runway, and the pilot's decision not to lower the flaps during the landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA00LA102
- Event ID
- 20001212X21332
- Case number
- SEA00LA102
- 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: 8600426d7967d0c483aa4f90b3786b445039faefc828793252b34188ded586e6; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:12:13.945Z.