SEA07GA112 · Cessna 182R
Rio Grand Valley Air Operations Cessna 182R · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE) to Rachal, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07GA112
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Government
- 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 182R
- 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
- N6277E
- Operator
- Rio Grand Valley Air Operations
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE), McAllen, TXTo Rachal, TX
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While involved in a low-level surveillance operation, the airplane was observed in a steep bank to the left, followed by a bank to the right before nosing into the ground. It was reported that the wind was gusting and that the airplane was flying downwind when it entered the steep left bank. Weather reporting facilities in the surrounding area revealed wind speed at 19 knots, gusting to 26 knots. A post-accident investigation of the engine and airframe revealed no anomalies which would have precluded normal operations.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering, which resulted in an inadvertent stall/spin and subsequent impact with the ground. A factor was the gusty tailwind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07GA112
- Event ID
- 20070430X00485
- Case number
- SEA07GA112
- 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: b360e98e19961ea28e038c94d31a6620f061fea63b1b4c642a5eff1333710179; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:34:05.339Z.