LAX01FA055 · Cessna TR182
Cessna TR182 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Napa County Airport (APC) to Petaluma Municipal Airport (O69)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01FA055
- 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
- N739HB
- Operator
- Colin L. Fox · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Napa County Airport (APC), Napa, CATo Petaluma Municipal Airport (O69), Petaluma, CA
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Improper use of equipment/aircraft
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, continued below
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After being cleared for a VOR/DME Runway 29 instrument approach in actual instrument meteorological conditions, the pilot failed to align the airplane onto the required 276-degree final approach course and descended beneath the 1,120-foot msl minimum descent altitude. The airplane impacted rising hilly terrain about 3.5 miles northeast of the airport at 1,020 feet msl, while tracking 291 degrees. Although the pilot had been cleared to perform a VOR/DME approach, an operating handheld GPS receiver (not approved for IFR navigation) was found in the airplane, and a GPS Runway 29 approach plate was found on the pilot's kneeboard. The GPS's final approach course was 290 degrees, and the airplane was tracking 291 degrees at the time of impact. Also, during the last 2 minutes of flight, the pilot had performed a stabilized descent from approximately 2,000 to 1,000 feet. The pilot was issued an instrument rating about 6 months before the accident. He had indicated to an acquaintance that he planned to practice instrument flying on the day of the crash. Toxicological tests on blood from the pilot detected a very high level of paroxetine (a prescription antidepressant) and an elevated level of mirtazapine (a prescription antidepressant with substantial sedative effects). The pilot did not indicate the use of these drugs on his last application for the medical certificate.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper IFR procedure, failure to maintain course alignment, and use of a nonapproved handheld GPS receiver for navigation during flight in actual instrument meteorological conditions. Factors contributing to the accident were the low clouds and the pilot's use of prescription drugs not approved for use by the FAA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01FA055
- Event ID
- 20010110X00077
- Case number
- LAX01FA055
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-12-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 09e8d5fd27a3b9761227cee6ff534811e9b6e3235e794d4ff65d99e1e7528d17; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:44:00.331Z.