LAX91FA059 · Cessna 182C
Cessna 182C · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From PO6 · Coolidge, AZ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA059
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182C
- 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
- N8922T
- Operator
- Stiegelmeyer, Jon V. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PO6 · Coolidge, AZTo 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
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, attempted
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Globe, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AFTER FLYING TO A DISTANT AIRPORT TO PERFORM A SERVICE FOR A FAMILY MEMBER THE PILOT TOOK OFF FOR HIS RETURN FLIGHT TO HIS HOME AIRPORT WITHOUT RECEIVING A PREFLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING OR FILING A FLIGHT PLAN. THE PILOT HAD MADE A PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT AT HIS HOME TOWN AND WAS ATTEMPTING TO MEET THE SCHEDULE. INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AND MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN EXISTED ALONG THE FLIGHT ROUTE. THE AIRCRAFT FAILED TO ARRIVE AND WAS MISSING. AN AERIAL AND GROUND SEARCH WAS INHIBITED BY INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS THAT EXISTED ALONG THE ASSUMED FLIGHT ROUTE. AFTER A SIX DAY SEARCH THE AIRCRAFT'S WRECKAGE WAS FOUND IN A MOUNTAIN PASS NEAR THE DESTINATION AIRPORT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO CONDUCT A WEATHER EVALUATION PRIOR TO FLIGHT AND HIS ATTEMPT TO CONDUCT HIS FLIGHT UNDER VISUAL FLIGHT RULES INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. LOW CEILINGS ALONG HIS FLIGHT ROUTE AND SELF INDUCED PRESSURE TO REACH HIS DESTINATION WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA059
- Event ID
- 20001212X24765
- Case number
- LAX91FA059
- 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: 8e61a69c6becb9892970dd2902a0a67c5b4a11d5481c175ccb8dec7a32ebf6a0; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:03:14.653Z.