ATL03FA010 · Cessna R182
Cessna R182 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Bartow Executive Airport (BOW) to Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03FA010
- 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
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna R182
- 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
- N4629S
- Operator
- Alberto Duboy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bartow Executive Airport (BOW), Bartow, FLTo Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO), Greensboro, NC
- 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 initial 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 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 control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an approach into Smith Reynolds Airport, Winston Salem, North Carolina, the pilot declared an emergency due to disorientation and conducted a missed approach. The pilot made two unsuccessful attempts to land at Smith Reynolds Airport, and then diverted to Raleigh Durham International Airport (RDU). While enroute to RDU the pilot was concerned about his fuel supply and decided to divert to Piedmont Triad International Airport, Greensboro, North Carolina. While the airplane was being radar vectored for the runway 23-localizer radar contact was lost, and the airplane collided with the ground. Examination of the wreckage site revealed the airplane came to rest in a heavily wooded and swampy area near the outer marker. The main fuselage was buried in approximately 10 feet of mud and water in a nose down attitude with the horizontal and vertical stabilizers protruding above the ground. The accident site was approximately 25 feet in diameter, and all flight control surfaces were located at the site. The pilot did not report any flight control or mechanical abnormalities. The 1254 weather observation for Piedmont Triad International Airport, Greensboro, reported winds zero four zero at seven knots, visibility one half statue mile, mist, one hundred overcast, temperature 11 degrees, dew point 11degrees, altimeter 30.22 inches. According to the Federal Aviation Administration Advisory Circular #60-4A: during periods of low visibility a pilot is particularly vulnerable to spatial disorientation.
Probable cause
The pilot experienced spatial disorientation, which resulted in a loss of control and the subsequent collision with the ground. Factors were low ceilings and fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03FA010
- Event ID
- 20021029X05399
- Case number
- ATL03FA010
- 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, coordinates. 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: ca3b42ad2439438cd3194140461141b37df7a4625ea9f321c6d2165ab10c12ae; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:43:28.738Z.