LAX82FA045 · Cessna 182N
Cessna 182N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to Imperial County Airport (IPL)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FA045
- 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
- 3 · 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 182N
- 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
- N92387
- Operator
- John T. Moore · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Imperial, CATo Imperial County Airport (IPL), Carlsbad, 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
- En route · descent
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, initiated
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in aircraft's ability
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE TAKEOFF, THE PILOT RECEIVED A COMPLETE WEATHER BRIEFING. THE BRIEFER WARNED HIM THAT THE WEATHER SYSTEM IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WAS EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS AND ADVISED HIM SEVERAL TIMES NOT TO GO. THE BRIEFING INCLUDED NUMEROUS PILOT REPORTS THAT CONFIRMED THE FORECAST OF ICING AND TURBULENCE. THE PILOT FILED AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN AND DEPARTED IN AN AIRCRAFT THAT WAS NOT CERTIFICATED FOR FLIGHT IN ICING CONDITIONS. RADAR CONTACT WITH THE AIRCRAFT WAS LOST WHILE IT WAS DESCENDING TO INTERCEPT THE ILS. THE PLANE WAS FOUND ON 1/21/82 WHERE IT HAD CRASHED IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. IT WAS LOCATED ABOUT 300 FT FROM WHERE IT HAD STRUCK THE TOPS OF TREES. INTERVIEWS WITH LOCAL RESIDENTS REVEALED THAT THE WEATHER WAS SEVERE WITH WIND AND RAIN AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. AN EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED NO PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE. THE ELEVATION OF THE TREES WAS ABOUT 3380 FT MSL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FA045
- Event ID
- 20020917X02256
- Case number
- LAX82FA045
- 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 1982-01-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1ad09666a8973411fe44215311004731f42dba101782ea2af62a0d815b47614c; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:38:49.304Z.