CHI83FA445 · Cessna 182B
Cessna 182B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Indianapolis International Airport (IND) to Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI83FA445
- 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
- Unknown
Cessna 182B
- 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
- N2531G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indianapolis International Airport (IND), Indianapolis, INTo Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR), Grand Rapids, MI
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT WAS ON A X-COUNTRY FLT ON A DARK NIGHT. DURING THE FLT, THE ACFT CRASHED IN A CORN FIELD. JUST PRIOR TO THE INITIAL IMPACT, THERE WAS APRX A 15 DEG DESCENDING ANGLE CUT THRU THE CORN IN THE DIRECTION OF FLT & A 30 DEG ANGLE CUT TO THE RIGHT. GREEN LENS MATERIAL WAS FOUND AT/NEAR THE INITAIL IMPACT POINT. AN INVESTIGATION WAS MADE, BUT NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. ACCORING TO A WX SUMMARY, THE CLOUD BASES WERE ESTIMATED TO HAVE BEEN AT 1200 TO 1500 FT AGL, CLOUD TOPS AT 10,000 FT MSL, FLT VISIBILITY ZERO IN CLOUDS & GREATER THAN 3 MI BELOW THE CLOUDS, LIGHT TURBULENCE BELOW 10,000 FT MSL & FREEZING LEVEL ABOVE 10,000 FT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI83FA445
- Event ID
- 20001214X44458
- Case number
- CHI83FA445
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-09-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3229193f75b79b015ae50a3e19c159e9b2f47b0e5ccfd1cbc047046a8f451dbd; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:06:29.608Z.