LAX87LA169 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Needles Airport (EED) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87LA169
- 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
Cessna 182Q
- 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
- N4828N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Needles Airport (EED), Needles, 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
- 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 object
- 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
- Wire, static
- 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 › Altitude, improper
- Pilot in command › Buzzing, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A CESSNA 182Q COLLIDED WITH AN UNMARKED 50 FT HIGH CABLE OVER THE COLORADO RIVER. THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED FLYING BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE CABLE ROCKING ITS WINGS TO BOATERS AND SUNBATHERS. ONE WITNESS STATED THAT THE ACFT 'BUZZED US, SO LOW, I ACTUALLY DUCKED, THINKING HE WOULD HIT US.' THE ACFT THEN STARTED A CLIMB AT WHICH TIME IT COLLIDED WITH THE CABLE. THE CABLE IS PART OF A GAGE STATION WHICH MEASURES THE HEIGHT OF THE COLORADO RIVER. THE CABLE SPANS 548.8 FT BETWEEN THE RIVER BANKS AND IS 1 1/8 INCHES IN DIAMETER AND CONSTRUCTED WITH 37 GALVANIZED PLOW STEEL STRANDS. THE CABLE CROSSING IS NOT MARKED ON THE PHOENIX SECTIONAL CHART, BUT THE CROSSING FALLS WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF A NATIONAL PARK SERVICE AREA. PILOTS ARE REQUESTED TO MAINTAIN A MINIMUM ALTITUDE OF 2,000 FT ABOVE THE SURFACE OF THESE AREAS. IN ADDITION THE FAR 91.79 RESTRICTS THE OPERATION OF AN ACFT TO NO CLOSER THAN 500 FT TO ANY PERSON, VESSEL, VEHICLE, OR STRUCTURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87LA169
- Event ID
- 20001213X30710
- Case number
- LAX87LA169
- 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: 4c530996a34e53384c511cc765c1dda8ab15c36e60a70c679d9075aeab4eeebe; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:10:59.589Z.