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NYC03FA015 · Cessna 182S

31 Oct 2002 · Accident, MD, United States

Cessna 182S · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route

From Clermont County Airport (I69) to Meriden Markham Municipal Airport (MMK)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC03FA015
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
1 · 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 182S

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
N7099L
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Clermont County Airport (I69), Batavia, OHTo Meriden Markham Municipal Airport (MMK), Meriden, CT
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 · cruise
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
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
  • Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot had attended initial instrument flight training at a facility in Ohio during the 2 weeks prior to the accident. Unable to complete the training, he elected to return home to Connecticut. While en route, the pilot contacted air traffic control for flight following advisories and information about the cloud conditions ahead of him. The pilot also contacted a flight service station (FSS), for further weather advisories. Upon contact with the FSS, the pilot stated that he was in level flight at 3,300 feet, flying in and out of the clouds, and encountering light icing conditions. The FSS specialist advised the pilot of instrument meteorological conditions along the route of flight, mountain obscuration, and icing conditions. The FSS specialist also recommended that the pilot climb to 6,000 feet, where he could expect VFR. The pilot responded that his flight conditions were "not that bad," and he would remain at 3,300 feet. The weather advisory was terminated, and the pilot re-contacted the air traffic controller, requesting a climb because he had rime ice. The controller replied that an airplane had reported ice at 7,000 feet, and another had reported cloud tops at 7,400 feet. The pilot then stated that he could not maintain VFR, and had "been in it" for 10-15 minutes. He further stated that he was getting some ice build up, but was "ok" with it. The controller then observed the accident airplane's target disappear from the radar screen. No further transmissions were received from the pilot. A witness who lived less than a 1/4 mile from the accident site observed the airplane descend out of the clouds, heading south. The airplane passed overhead, just over the treetops, made a 180-degree turn to the right, and descended into a field. The airplane touched down hard, and came to rest upright in the soft, plowed, field. Witnesses reported that the weather about the time of the accident included a low cloud layer, and mixed precipitation of ice and snow.

Probable cause

The pilots improper in-flight decision to continue flight into known adverse weather conditions. A factor related to the accident was the icing conditions.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC03FA015
Event ID
20021112X05459
Case number
NYC03FA015
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: 7905eee21d945d776b22bb6e4c3c62dfd590ae80344c2dd586dc516eb470b6f9; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:43:10.717Z.