MKC85FA078 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From F29 · Oklahoma City, OK to Memorial Field Airport (HOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC85FA078
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182A
- 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
- N6048B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From F29 · Oklahoma City, OKTo Memorial Field Airport (HOT), Hot Springs, AR
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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); Tree(s)
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT 1230 CST ON 3/27/85, THE PLT & HIS WIFE DEPARTED ON A X-COUNTRY FLT, BUT DID NOT ARRIVE AT THEIR DESTINATION. WHEN FAMILY MEMBERS BECAME CONCERNED, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED. THE WRECKAGE WAS LOCATED ON 3/31/85 WHERE THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES & CRASHED ON WOODED TERRAIN. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE PLT HAD OBTAINED AN AIRBORNE WX BRIEFING AT 1343 CST.THE LATEST WX AT HOT SPRINGS AT THAT TIME WAS REPORTED AS SKY PARTIALLY OBSCURED, 800' OVERCAST, VISIBILITY 3/4 MI WITH FOG, WIND 170 DEG AT 5 KTS. A RADAR SUMMARY SHOWED 2/10 COVERAGE OF THUNDERSTORMS & RAIN SHOWERS IN THE AREA. AN EXAM OF THE CRASH SITE SHOWED THAT INITIAL IMPACT WAS WITH TREES AT APRX 40' AGL. THE 1ST IMPACT WITH THE GROUND WAS ABOUT 200' BEYOND INITIAL IMPACT WITH THE TREES. THE WRECKAGE PATH WAS 400' LONG. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. THE PROP BLADES HAD SIGNIFICANT ROTATIONAL DAMAGE. APRX 27 MI NW AT HOT SPRINGS, THE 1358 WX WAS IN PART: PARTIALLY OBSCURED, 800 FT OVERCAST, 1 MI VIS WITH FOG. THE CRASH SITE WAS APRX 300' ABOVE THE ELEV AT HOT SPRINGS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC85FA078
- Event ID
- 20001214X36010
- Case number
- MKC85FA078
- 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: 6528e0e580b74ee4ea27589f8102de215f8de283673e99c667e6ec06ec8be833; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:05:38.839Z.