CHI82FA186 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET) to Oakland County International Airport (PTK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI82FA186
- 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
- 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 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N4967G
- Operator
- Karland T. Stensel · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET), Detroit, MITo Oakland County International Airport (PTK), Pontiac, 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
- 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
- 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, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
EARLIER IN THE EVENING DURING A RETURN FLT FROM LONDON, ONTARIO TO PONTIAC, MI THE PLT BECAME DISORIENTED & WAS RADAR VECTORED TO DETROIT CITY ARPT, THE ONLY ARPT REPORTING VMC. THE PLT LANDED AT ABOUT 2208. AFTER LANDING THE PLT RECEIVED TWO WX BRIEFINGS AT 2336 & 0016. BOTH TIMES THE PLT WAS ADVISED THAT VFR FLT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. THE FLT DEPARTED AT 0033 & WITNESSES OBSERVED AN ACFT FLYING ABOUT 2 MI SOUTH OF THE ACCIDENT SITE. VISIBILITY WAS REPORTED ABOUT 200 FT ON HIGH GROUND & 500 FT IN LOW LYING AREAS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI82FA186
- Event ID
- 20020917X03064
- Case number
- CHI82FA186
- 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: a040aefa545c8624dd8f82b3d1e800ac42b844f4d02c9ec5ab6aa4ee9cb49df3; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:19:44.863Z.