SEA83LA126 · Cessna 182H
Cessna 182H · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Kindersley Airport (YKY) to VPT · PRINCE RUPPERT
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA83LA126
- 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 182H
- 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
- N1820X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kindersley Airport (YKY), WhitehorseTo VPT · PRINCE RUPPERT
- 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); Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PLT WAS ON A NIGHT FLT FROM WHITEHORSE TO PRINCE RUPERT, CANADA VIA SKAGWAY & JUNEAU, AK. ACCORDING TO HIM, WHEN PASSING THE FIVE FINGERS NDB TO ENTER THE STRAIT, HE ENCOUNTERED SOUTHEAST WINDS OF APRX 25 KTS. ON ATTEMPTING TO RETURN TO JUNEAU, HE BECAME UNSURE OF HIS POSITION DUE TO DETERIORATING WX. HE SPENT SEVERAL HRS TRYING TO DETERMINE HIS POSITION & FINALLY SAW THE LIGHTS OF A SHIP. ALSO, HE WAS AT LOW ALTITUDE & REPORTEDLY TRIED FOR 45 MIN TO COMMUNICATE HIS PROBLEM BY RADIO. EVENTUALLY, COMMUNICATION WAS RELAYED BY ANOTHER ACFT THAT WAS OVERFLYING THE AREA. AS FUEL WAS EXHAUSTED, THE ACFT WAS DITCHED NEXT TO THE SHIP THAT HE HAD LOCATED. HE WAS RESCUED BY PERSONNEL ON THE SHIP, BUT THE ACFT SANK. THE STUDENT PLT HAD ONLY 7 HRS OF NIGHT FLYING EXPERIENCE & NO REPORTED INSTRUMENT TIME. THE WX AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WAS ESTIMATED TO BE 2000 FT OVERCAST, 1/2 MI VISIBILITY WITH RAIN & FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA83LA126
- Event ID
- 20001214X43540
- Case number
- SEA83LA126
- 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: 862a27760668ba3e805acb7bdc3760c28f1291c1e24727a753855860fcf77ccd; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:59:24.896Z.