CHI08CA024 · Cessna C-182
Cessna C-182 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Potato Pond Heliport (MI73) to 804 · Sparta, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08CA024
- 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 C-182
- Aircraft type
- Cessna C-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
- N1431S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Potato Pond Heliport (MI73), Cedar Springs, MITo 804 · Sparta, MI
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, delayed
- Pilot in command › Flight into adverse weather, performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was destroyed upon impact with trees during an aborted landing on a private airstrip. The pilot reported that during initial climb out after liftoff, a wind shear caused a loss of lift and takeoff was aborted. Due to the wet grass runway, the pilot was unable to stop the aircraft and it impacted trees at the far end of the runway. The takeoff was on runway 27 ( 2,500 long) and the pilot reported winds were from 220 degrees at 15 knots, gusting to 23 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to takeoff with strong, gusty winds and his inability to stop the airplane prior to it traveling off the end of the runway during the delayed aborted takeoff. Factors associated with the accident were the wet, grass airstrip and gusty wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08CA024
- Event ID
- 20071211X01925
- Case number
- CHI08CA024
- 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: 220d34f9d88fad05775de89cbc9f3a9b4091de89162ef825c3d762893f46cb05; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:19:59.452Z.