CHI02FA269 · Cessna TR182
Cessna TR182 · Accident: abrupt maneuver while maneuvering
From Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS) to Hector International Airport (FAR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02FA269
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- Visual 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
- N756WF
- Operator
- Wayne A. Christopherson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS), Bismarck, NDTo Hector International Airport (FAR), Fargo, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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 control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Maneuver to avoid obstructions, performed
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was destroyed by fire after impacting the terrain, following a loss of control. The pilot and passenger were inspecting high tension power lines when the accident occurred. The airplane was following a set of high-tension lines that ran eastbound from Bismarck, along Interstate 94. One person, located approximately 6 miles west of the accident site, reported that the airplane was flying along the south side of the lines, slightly below the height of the lower towers. Another set of power lines, coming from the northwest, join up and run parallel on the north side of the lines being followed. The two sets of lines diverge at the accident site with the northern most lines turning toward the south across the airplane's flight path. Witnesses reported seeing the airplane flying low and slow near the power lines, heading from the west to the east. Inspection of the towers and lines did not reveal any evidence that the airplane had contacted them. The bid paperwork that was forwarded to the NTSB from the pilot's company did not show the intersecting power lines. The owner of the power lines provided a supplemental plan profile, which did show the intersecting lines. It is not know if the pilot had the plan profile. The North Dakota Aeronautical Chart and the Twin Cities Sectional both show the intersecting power lines. The pilot's wife stated that she did not recall the pilot using any maps or charts during the portion of the flight when she was on board.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate visual lookout and his failure to maintain clearance of the transmission wires. Also causal was inadequate preflight planning. Factors associated with the accident were the low altitude and airspeed when the abrupt maneuver was made and the high tension power lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02FA269
- Event ID
- 20020906X01548
- Case number
- CHI02FA269
- 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 2002-09-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 30b852e8b6695074cc64e48fb737a4144944c5360e4d6bcd1b614489b9bb4941; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:53:15.924Z.