CHI07LA204 · Cessna 182K
Cessna 182K · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Merrill Municipal Airport (RRL) to Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport (JVL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07LA204
- 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 182K
- 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
- N2579R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merrill Municipal Airport (RRL), Merrill, WITo Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport (JVL), Janesville, 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Cessna 182 airplane sustained substantial damage on impact with terrain during a forced landing following a loss of electrical power and reported loss of engine power during cruise. The pilot's accident report, in part, stated, "Coming in at about 140 at the threshold of 36 I had to force it to the ground causing it to porpoise when I got all landing gear on turf I was still going fast and was at the end of the runway. With a road and a house just a few hundred feet ahead I decided to turn into the corn on my left to stop." A post accident examination of the wreckage revealed a loose alternator wire. The engine was subsequently started and ran. The approach speed with no flaps for the 182K is 80 to 90 MPH.
Probable cause
The reported non-mechanical loss of engine power for undetermined reasons during cruise and the excessive airspeed the pilot maintained during the approach for the forced landing. Factors were the loss of electrical power during cruise and the high vegetation that was impacted during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07LA204
- Event ID
- 20070711X00915
- Case number
- CHI07LA204
- 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: d494c6706a8bfe6da8ba5af0b1afad5e9da1ee62bc727bd5e617c42f3490dbfe; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:27:31.791Z.