SEA03LA098 · Cessna R182
Cessna R182 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Renton Municipal Airport (RNT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA098
- 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
- 0 · 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 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
- N7568T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Renton Municipal Airport (RNT), Renton, WATo not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Flt control syst, wing flap control › Failure
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The CFI and private pilot reported that prior to practicing landings air work was accomplished which included numerous flap transitions from 40 degrees to 20 degrees. On short final for a touch-and-go landing the flaps were selected to 40 degrees, the full down position. Touchdown was within 300 feet of the runway threshold. During the landing rollout the instructor directed the student to set the flaps to 20 degrees, which the instructor double checked by looking at the flap selector lever. Power was added and the airplane rotated about 600 to 700 feet down the runway. After 5 seconds in the air the rear-seated passenger announced that the flaps were still full down. The instructor looked at the flap handle, which was at the 20-degree position, then moved it several times between the 20-degree and 0-degree position. The rear-seated passenger again announced that the flaps were not moving. As the instructor noticed the rate of climb was poor, he retracted the gear to reduce drag. Due to the poor performance and concern about clearing the obstacles ahead, he elected to land straight ahead on the 2,200 feet of runway remaining. Taking control of the airplane, the instructor reduced power and selected the landing gear to extend. When the aircraft touched down the nose gear was fully locked down, while both main landing gear were not in the down and locked position as a result of not having adequate time to extend; they were partially collapsed. Examination by an FAA inspector, who arrived about one hour after the accident, revealed the flaps were in the 40-degree position. All attempts by the inspector to move the flaps out of the 40-degree position with the flap selector lever were unsuccessful. However, after the aircraft was moved and the main landing gear extended to its down and locked position, FAA inspectors observed the flaps operate normally through their full range. An airframe and power plant mechanic found no anomalies which would have prevented normal operation. On the preceding flight the flaps had been written up as sticking full down twice.
Probable cause
The failure of the flaps to operate properly for undetermined reasons during the initial climb and subsequent aborted takeoff. A factor was the collapse of the main landing gear due to an inadequate amount of time for the gear extension process to be completed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA098
- Event ID
- 20030620X00922
- Case number
- SEA03LA098
- 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 2003-06-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d97be2c0f509e8c29cff4e833dd2b5d8a7281bb3927b2541451e0841a3e69808; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:10:17.365Z.