DEN07FA140 · Cessna 182R
Cessna 182R · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Sheridan County Airport (SHR) to WY
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN07FA140
- 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
- 3 · 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
- N6109N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sheridan County Airport (SHR), Sheridan, WYTo WY
- 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
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 possible
- Weather condition › High wind
- Weather condition › Turbulence
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident airplane departed approximately 1530 for a search and rescue mission in the mountains. A witness in the area observed an airplane, matching the description of the accident airplane, flying approximately 400 to 600 feet above the ground. The burning wreckage of the accident airplane was located north of the witnesses position approximately 1800, on the east down sloping face of a vegetated canyon wall. The airplane was destroyed by fire. An examination of the airplane's systems revealed no anomalies. An AIRMET for moderate low-level turbulence was valid for the area. Winds in the area of the accident were recorded gusting to 25 miles per hour. Winds normal to the ridgeline of 20 knots or greater is conducive to leeside turbulence. Mission procedures state that the pilot should adjust the search altitude based upon the winds aloft - 10 knots of wind results in an addition of 1,000 feet to the search altitude and 20 knots of wind results in an addition of 2,000 feet to the search altitude. The pilot reported on his mission planning statement that his search altitude would be 1,000 feet.
Probable cause
the pilot's inability to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering in mountainous terrain due to gusty wind conditions, and lee side turbulence. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's improper in-flight planning and decision making, and his failure to follow operational procedures regarding altitudes flown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN07FA140
- Event ID
- 20070827X01244
- Case number
- DEN07FA140
- 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: 7d2e35543ad4a120b378d0922d8171c89f1ff08ad0cdda57bf9de9faf6192fba; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:33:49.741Z.