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BFO85LA022 · Cessna 182

3 Mar 1985 · Waynesboro, VA, United States

Cessna 182 · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing

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Event

NTSB case
BFO85LA022
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 182

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
N3950D
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo 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
Standing · engine(s) operating
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
Propeller/rotor contact to person
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
None

Cause areas

  • Passenger › Clearance, misjudged
  • Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, inadequate

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Waynesboro, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

THE STUDENT PLT TAXIED THE ACFT TO THE RUN-UP AREA AND STOPPED WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING. THE PASSENGER, A RATED HELICOPTER PILOT, EXITED THE AIRPLANE TO RETRIEVE A PORTABLE COMMUNICATIONS RADIO. ACCORDING TO THE STUDENT, THE PASSENGER DUCKED UNDER THE WING STRUT AND WALKED FORWARD INTO THE PROPELLER WITH THE ACFT REMAINING STATIONARY THRU-OUT THE OCCURRENCE. THE PASSENGER, WHO RECEIVED SERIOUS SHOULDER AND BACK LACERATIONS, FELT THAT HE HAD CLEARED THE PROP ARC AND THAT THE ACFT MOVED & STRUCK HIM.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record BFO85LA022
Event ID
20001214X35853
Case number
BFO85LA022
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, damage. 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: 4e58b6496e098fb32075d99d0039ba880a9f8ac5d19d83a480609c0af1699f69; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:21:02.680Z.