CHI04LA104 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M and Cessna 182S · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA104
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 172M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N73213
- Operator
- Gene Haig
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo Burlington Municipal Airport (BUU), Burlington, WI
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · 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
- N355BD
- Operator
- Waukegan Wings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waukegan National Airport (UGN), Waukegan, ILTo Burlington Municipal Airport (BUU), Burlington, WI
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Pilots of both aircraft › Visual lookout, 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
A Cessna 172M and a Cessna 182S both received substantial damage during a midair collision. Both airplanes landed without further incident. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The pilot of the Cessna 172M stated that he was in level flight at 2,500 feet mean sea level when he felt and heard a thump from the rear of the airplane. After the collision, the pilot saw the Cessna 182S above, to the left, and in front of him. The pilot of the Cessna 182S stated that as he rolled out from a steep turn, he saw the Cessna 172M at his 2 o'clock position, slightly low and very close. A moment later, his landing gear struck the Cessna 172M's vertical stabilizer. Neither airplane was receiving air traffic control services. The pilot of the Cessna 182S stated that the purpose of his flight was flight proficiency with the intent to practice holding, procedure turns, and instrument approaches. The pilot of the Cessna 172M did not hold an airplane instrument rating and was receiving instruction prior to the accident flight toward an instrument ratting. The pilot of the Cessna 182S held an airplane instrument rating at the time of the accident. Neither pilot had a safety pilot aboard the accident flights.
Probable cause
Visual lookout not maintained by the pilots of both airplanes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA104
- Event ID
- 20040414X00466
- Case number
- CHI04LA104
- 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 2004-04-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c27c3e78e6bf8018449742e91b2eac5e78c11d5f7d2279f2f026ec299ebd23cc; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:45:12.732Z.