ATL03FA017 · Cessna 182Q
Cessna 182Q · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Tallahassee International Airport (TLH) to Habersham County Airport (AJR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03FA017
- 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 182Q
- 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
- N58GH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tallahassee International Airport (TLH), Tallahassee, FLTo Habersham County Airport (AJR), Cornellia, GA
- 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 final 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, not followed
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, continued below
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was cleared for a GPS 6 approach, and the wreckage was found a few hundred feet from the runway. Trees near the runway threshold were found broken 15 feet above the runway elevation. The published minimum descent altitude for the approach was 533 feet above the runway touchdown zone. Examination of the airframe, engine, vacuum pumps, and instruments revealed no evidence of malfunction. Forensic toxicology revealed 0.67 (ug/mL, ug/g) Tramadol was detected in the pilot's blood, and Tramadol was present in the urine. Tramadol is a prescription narcotic-like painkiller used for moderate to severe pain, and the pilot was taking the drug for pain following back surgery. A review of FAA airman medical records revealed no evidence the pilot reported the Tramadol usage to the FAA. Title 14 CFR Part 91.17 states, "(a) No person may act ... as a crewmember of a civil aircraft ... (3) While using any drug that affects the person's faculties in any way contrary to safety."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow IFR approach procedures and continue below the minimum descent altitude, which resulted in an inflight collision with trees, and the ground. A factor was the pilot's impairment from a prescription drug.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03FA017
- Event ID
- 20021126X05529
- Case number
- ATL03FA017
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-11-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f86a00072ecdf9894329dc12942a3dbb151d855d154deb00fbcf6158180f7372; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:38:34.348Z.