DFW05LA118 · Cessna TR182
Cessna TR182 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB) to Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05LA118
- 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
- 2 · 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 TR182
- 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
- N6150S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB), Pueblo, COTo Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT), Little Rock, AR
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, 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
The 4-place single-engine airplane impacted the water while executing an instrument approach in instrument meteorological conditions. A partial debris field was located in the river; however, the airplane was not recovered and is presumed to be destroyed. The airplane's final destination was in Florida, where the airplane was to be sold. The maintenance records were reported to be aboard the airplane and were not recovered. Voice communications depicted that the 1,014 -hour instrument rated private pilot was vectored to the ILS Runway 22R approach. Radar data revealed that the airplane remained left of the final approach course throughout the approach before turning right of the course line approximately 2.5 miles short of the final approach fix (FAF) for the approach. The airplane then turned left of the final approach course and back to the localizer course line approximately one mile from the FAF. When the airplane was abeam the FAF, it was observed to be slightly left of the course line. When the airplane was approximately one mile from the runway threshold, it was observed drifting to the right of the course line. As the airplane approached the airport, a 180-degree left turn was initiated, over flying the airport. A witness located on the airport reported observing the accident airplane slightly east of runway 18 at an altitude of approximately 100 feet above ground level (agl), flying at a high rate of speed. The witness stated that the airplane "made a drastic pull-up and a steep bank of at least 45 degrees," as it reentered the clouds approximately 200 feet agl. All navigational aids associated with the approach were reported to be functional at the time of the accident. An instrument flight instructor who witnessed the accident reported that 30 to 40 minutes prior to the accident, he flew the same approach under similar weather conditions and did not experience any anomalies with the localizer of glide slope. No other irregularities with any navigational aids at the airport were reported by any pilots around the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during an instrument approach for undetermined reasons. Contributing factors were the mist and low cloud ceiling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05LA118
- Event ID
- 20050128X00114
- Case number
- DFW05LA118
- 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: a68c970292d93819bf9d89ea979519895007158e2f67ee49841f76ea48c8c8b2; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:09:25.945Z.