DFW05CA130 · Cessna 182P
Rutledge Air Cessna 182P · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Circle S Farms Airport (AR91) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05CA130
- 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 182P
- 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
- N9425M
- Operator
- Rutledge Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Circle S Farms Airport (AR91), Lowell, ARTo 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 56.9-hour private pilot who was receiving instruction from a certified flight instructor lost control of the airplane during takeoff/initial climb and flew into the tops of several trees before impacting water 300 feet beyond the departure end of the runway. Examination of the airplane revealed that the flaps were up. There was also a quartering left tailwind of 9 knots, with a density altitude of 2,376 feet. The length of the private grass airstrip was 1,971 feet long. Using assumptions for accident conditions, the airplane manufacturer calculated a required takeoff roll of 1,910 feet to clear a 50-foot obstacle.
Probable cause
The instructor's inadequate supervision and the second pilot's inadequate planning/decision to assure adequate takeoff performance to clear obstacles. Contributing factors were the prevailing quartering tailwind, the pilots selection of the wrong runway, and a high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05CA130
- Event ID
- 20050706X00935
- Case number
- DFW05CA130
- 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: 8f85fa677c248f29af1b9579b63810c4604ca1c4180aff32872ab538cc2aa7b4; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:07:31.376Z.