DEN84FA085 · Cessna TR182
Cessna TR182 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Crystal Airport (MIC) to Dickinson Theodore Roosevelt Regional Airport (DIK)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN84FA085
- 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
- 1 · 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 TR182
- 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
- N737QE
- Operator
- Larry Strand
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crystal Airport (MIC), Minneapolis, MNTo Dickinson Theodore Roosevelt Regional Airport (DIK), Dickinson, ND
- 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)
- 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, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT RECEIVED TWO WEATHER BRIEFINGS BEFORE THE FLIGHT. DURING THE LAST BRIEFING AT 1350 MST, HE WAS INFORMED THAT VFR FLT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. AT 1554 MST, THE ACFT DEPARTED CRYSTAL ARPT IN A WESTERLY DIRECTION. SEVERAL WITNESSES TRAVELING ON A HIGHWAY STATED THAT THEY SAW A FLASHING LIGHT FROM A SMALL AIRPLANE WHICH WAS FLYING LOW & APPEARED TO BE FOLLOWING THE HIGHWAY. THEY REPORTED THAT THE WEATHER WAS CLEAR WHEN THEY FIRST SIGHTED THE ACFT. HOWEVER, SHORTLY AFTER IT WENT OUT OF VIEW, THEY ENCOUNTERED BLINDING SLEET SNOW. THE ACFT IMPACTED THE GROUND IN AN OPEN FIELD AFTER IT HAD TURNED RIGHT OF COURSE. IMPACT OCCURRED IN A RIGHT WING LOW, NOSE LOW ATTITUDE WHILE ON A HEADING OF ABOUT 015 DEG. THE DIRECTION TO THE DESTINATION WAS APRX 270 DEG. THE ACFT WAS FOUND ON 2/6/84.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN84FA085
- Event ID
- 20001214X38743
- Case number
- DEN84FA085
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 18aa66dfde65b94d4954950fe3f3d246b50b7fff4aa0a76803a9b6acb7f6defd; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:40:39.458Z.