NYC04LA106 · Cessna 182S
Cessna 182S · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Robertson Field (4B8) to Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04LA106
- 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 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
- N518CR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Robertson Field (4B8), Plainville, CTTo Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC), Oxford, 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Autopilot/flight director, servo › Failure
- Flight control, elevator › Restricted
- Pilot in command › Flare, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the climbout, the pilot could not lower the nose of the airplane without using excessive force on the yoke. He then attempted to use the manual elevator trim wheel to lower the nose. When the manual elevator trim wheel was rolled forward, and released, it rolled back on its own to the original position. The pilot performed all of the published emergencies; however, the situation did not change. The pilot elected to discontinue the flight, and performed a forced landing back to the airport. While landing, the airplane had an excessive nose high attitude, and the pilot aggressively pushed the nose over with the yoke. The airplane touched down hard, collapsing the nose wheel assembly, and slid to a stop on the runway. The pilot further stated that he did not recall engaging the autopilot during the flight, and did not attempt to use the elevator trim switch located on the yoke. Examination of the wreckage revealed no abnormalities with the autopilot, or the flight controls when they were tested. Two days before the accident, the pilot consulted an avionics mechanic about the elevator control being stiff and difficult to move. The mechanic examined the airplane and stated that "it checked out OK, but there was a possibility that at some time, the elevator servo might jam in an unscheduled position." The pilot and mechanic agreed that the servos would be replaced at a later date. The servos were not replaced until after the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the elevator servo which resulted in restricted elevator movement and the pilot's inability to initiate a landing flare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04LA106
- Event ID
- 20040422X00499
- Case number
- NYC04LA106
- 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: fcbc339d2b72e0077fe1f31963af1e1016ff1c61ac3a59e2c6e4eaf3e3cd3488; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:45:53.785Z.