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NYC85LA086 · Cessna 182

23 Mar 1985 · Fairfield, PA, United States

Penn Shadecrafters Cessna 182 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route

From Seamans Field (9N3) to Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC85LA086
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
Instrument 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
N97700
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Seamans Field (9N3), Factoryville, PATo Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO), Greensboro, NC
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

  • Electrical system › Failure, partial
  • Vacuum system › Inoperative

Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.

NTSB narrative

DURING FLT, THE ACFT HAD AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM WHILE FLYING IN INSTRUMENT (IFR) CONDITIONS. THE PLT REPORTED THAT ONLY THE ALTIMETER, AIRSPEED INDICATOR & MAG COMPASS WERE OPERATING. HE BECAME SPATIALLY DISORIENTED & THE ACFT ENTERED SEVERAL DIVES & AT LEAST 1 SPIN. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT DESCENDED BELOW THE CLOUDS IN A VALLEY WHERE THE PLT COULD MAINTAIN VISUAL REFERENCES. THE PLT THEN MADE AN EMERGENCY LANDING ON ROUGH/UPHILL TERRAIN WHERE THE ACFT WAS DAMAGED. THE PLT SAID THE SURROUNDING HILLS WERE COVERED WITH CLOUDS. ALSO, HE SAID THAT THE VACUUM PUMP, TURN & BANK INDICATOR, ATTITUDE INDICATOR & STALL WARNING SYS BECAME INOP OR MALFUNCTIONED WHILE HE WAS IN IFR CONDITIONS.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC85LA086
Event ID
20001214X36036
Case number
NYC85LA086
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: 8326320bdbf688441a8818912e8a6d1a9feb701afc446982f661896040127968; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:55:07.849Z.