ATL82FID06 · Cessna 402B
Cessna 402B · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Louisville, KY to 0REG0N CITY, OR
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL82FID06
- 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 402B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 402
- 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
- N5218J
- Operator
- D. G. Hardman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville, KYTo 0REG0N CITY, OR
- 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 missed 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 object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › IFR procedure, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT DURING HIS FIRST ILS APPROACH, THE LOCALIZER NEEDLE FLUCTUATED TO THE LEFT. HE MADE CORRECTIVE TURNS TO THE LEFT. WHEN HE BROKE OUT OF THE CLOUDS AT THE DECISION HEIGHT (DH), HE OBSERVED THE RUNWAY TO THE RIGHT AND MADE A MISSED APPROACH. AT THAT TIME, HE ASSUMED THAT HE MADE AN ERROR DUE TO A COCKPIT DISTRACTION WHEN HE TURNED ON HIS LANDING LIGHT. HE REPORTED THE SAME TYPE OF PROBLEM DURING HIS SECOND ILS APPROACH, EXCEPT THE FLUCTUATIONS WERE LARGER. AT THE DH, BOTH OF HIS ILS LOCALIZER NEEDLES SHOWED THAT HE WAS RIGHT OF COURSE. HE SAW A ROW OF LIGHTS TO HIS LEFT THAT HE THOUGHT WAS THE RUNWAY. AFTER HE TURNED LEFT AND DESCENDED, HE REALIZED THEY WERE STREET LIGHTS. DURING HIS CLIMB FOR ANOTHER APPROACH, THE RIGHT WING STRUCK A TREE. HE ENCOUNTERED THE SAME ILS PROBLEM ON A THIRD APPROACH, BUT LANDED SAFELY. A CHECK OF THE ILS TRANSMITTERS AND BOTH RECEIVERS REVEALED NO MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE. THE PLANE HAD AN AUTOPILOT FRONT/BACK SWITCH, WHICH WAS REPORTEDLY SET ON "FRONT".
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL82FID06
- Event ID
- 20020917X01743
- Case number
- ATL82FID06
- 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: 9905d8049bfd965e2da7c82d39b57b7aca023c450a5241e6d77ddbbe8efbd6e2; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:42:07.439Z.