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DEN83FA129 · Cessna 182

31 May 1983 · COLORADO SPRGS, CO, United States

Cessna 182 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route

From Childress Municipal Airport (CDS) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
DEN83FA129
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
N735FW
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Childress Municipal Airport (CDS), Childress, TXTo 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
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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Colorado Springs, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

THE ACFT MADE A CONTROLLED HARD EMERGENCY LANDING IN AN OPEN FIELD OFF AIRPORT AFTER AN ENCOUNTER WITH ICING. THE PILOT WAS MAKING A TURN DURING AN INSTRUMENT APPROACH PROCEDURE AND FELT THE ACFT BEGIN TO STALL AND BUFFET AND SLOW IN ITS RESPONSE TO ROLL. HE PITCHED DOWN TO MAINTAIN CONTROL AND BEGAN A DESCENT TO LOOK FOR A LANDING SPOT. HE MADE A RAPID DESCENT TO 7500 FT.MSL & THEN SLOWED SINK RATE WITH POWER BUT CONTINUED DESCENT. BETWEEN BREAKS IN CLOUDS HE MADE GROUNDCONTACT AND FINALLY BROKE OUT BELOW 100 FT CEILING TO LAND IN A PASTURE WITH APPROACH AT 80 KTS FULL POWER NOSE HIGH WINGS LEVEL. THE ACFT LANDED HARD AND THE RT MAIN FAILED IN ROLLOUT. 100 FEET AFTER INITIAL IMPACT THE ACFT HIT A FENCE.AFTER THE NOSE GEAR FAILED THE PROP DUG IN AND THE ACFT NOSED OVER 156 FEET FROM TOUCHDOWN. THE OCCUPANTS WERE NOT INJURED AND MADE AN EXIT FROM THE ACFT THROUGH A WINDOW SINCE THE DOORS WERE JAMMED SHUT.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DEN83FA129
Event ID
20001214X42944
Case number
DEN83FA129
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: 205c46417ec9dce3d5bd63c94b6767d0f10bea6d6163e6b1c24c19e100a819dd; retrieved 2026-09-23T22:04:49.467Z.