ATL86FA025 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Dare County Regional Airport (MQI) to Northeastern Regional Airport (EDE)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL86FA025
- 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 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
- N735SS
- Operator
- Sale Reported Status
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dare County Regional Airport (MQI), MATEO, NCTo Northeastern Regional Airport (EDE), Edenton, 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, below
- Pilot in command › Self-induced pressure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED INTO THE ABERMARLE SOUND AND SANK IN 18 FT OF WATER. THE PILOT WAS REPORTEDLY ON AN NDB APPROACH AND DESCENDED BELOW MDA. WITNESSES STATED THAT THE AIRCRAFT CIRCLED OVER HEAD ABOUT 15 MINUTES PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. WITNESSES ALSO STATED THAT THE VISIBILITY WAS LIMITED TO 15 FEET DUE TO FOG. THE AIRCRAFT WAS RECOVERED AND THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF PRE- IMPACT FAILURE. THE PILOT WAS ATTEMPTING TO GET TO AN IMPORTANT BUSINESS MEETING TO MEET WITH COMPANY EXECUTIVES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL86FA025
- Event ID
- 20001214X38171
- Case number
- ATL86FA025
- 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: 60dd5e3fa4582d75863f296a5a2424e174e92a23210fa65edb9bc3b344d3dbe2; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:46:10.742Z.