LAX03FA116 · Cessna 182G
Cessna 182G · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From Santa Maria, CA to Whiteman Airport (WHP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03FA116
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182G
- 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
- N3236S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Maria, CATo Whiteman Airport (WHP), Pacoima, 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Stall/mush
- 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
- Object › Tree(s)
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not attained
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While taking off from his remote ranch airstrip, the pilot stalled the airplane and collided with trees and terrain. The pilot had been utilizing this airstrip for more than 20 years. The airstrip was a 1,200 by 50-foot dirt/grass runway that was oriented on a magnetic bearing of 050/230 degrees. On the north side of the runway edge were bushes that were from 6 to 20 feet in height. The south side of the runway had bushes that were 6 to 12 feet in height. At the end of the runway was a row of bushes that were about 10 to 12 feet in height. All of the bushes and trees in the area of the runway environment were overgrown. One hundred feet of the eastern end of the runway sloped uphill and appeared to be unusable. The pilot departed from the airstrip westbound. There were ground tracks indicating the airplane had veered to the left (south) side of the runway. On the south side of the runway, about 900 feet down the usable portion of the runway, there were bushes that were disturbed displaying broken twigs and branches. The damage to the bushes started at 6 feet high and continued to increase in height. About 920 feet down the runway, there was a red colored navigation lens found on the ground in the same area as the disturbed bushes. At the departure end of the runway there was another bush that had been trimmed flat about 10 to 12 feet high. About 75 feet west of the departure end of the runway was a row of trees that were perpendicular to the runway alignment; the tops of these trees were about 20 to 30 feet higher than the bushes located at the end of the runway. There was no evidence of any disruption or impact damage to the trees. The aircraft then impacted another stand of trees, which were 370 feet southwest from the departure end of the airstrip in a nose and left wing low attitude. No mechanical malfunctions were noted with the airplane or engine during the on scene investigation.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain proper runway alignment during the takeoff ground roll, which resulted in the left wing contacting the brush lining the runway edge. The combined effects of the brush and tree contact retarded the airplanes acceleration and resulted in the pilot's failure to attain an adequate airspeed in the takeoff initial climb, which resulted in an inadvertent stall mush. The pilot's failure to maintain the surrounding areas of the runway was a factor in the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03FA116
- Event ID
- 20030331X00417
- Case number
- LAX03FA116
- 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 2003-03-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a0d87f85a1c9e97e27440fd6499e23cd2cbab4065a2f764c0552730efb1145a3; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:22:47.662Z.