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WPR09CA194 · Cessna 182A

14 Apr 2009 · Las Vegas, NV, United States

Cessna 182A · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing

From Tonopah Airport (TPH) to North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)

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Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.

Event

NTSB case
WPR09CA194
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 182A

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
N4816D
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route Narrative disagrees
From Tonopah Airport (TPH), Tonopaw, NVTo North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NV
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
Landing · flare/touchdown
Defining eventThe 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
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
  • Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot said that he was landing on runway 25 and that during the landing flare he experienced wind gusts from multiple directions. The tower controller said the airplane landed in the dirt next to the runway. The airplane's nose landing gear failed and the airplane nosed down onto its spinner and right wing tip, coming to rest upright. The right wing tip's outer two feet were bent up and wrinkled. Additionally, the propeller's spinner was crushed and both blades were bent aft. The pilot reported the wind from 240 degrees at 14 knots, while the airport's Automated Surface Observing System reported the wind from 210 degrees at 22 knots, gusting to 31 knots.

Probable cause

The pilot's inadequate compensation for the gusty crosswind conditions while landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR09CA194
Event ID
20090416X72609
Case number
WPR09CA194
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: 30eb8bc342ac73199718cfd4049b13b4032ef126262f758637f822dd3e9fe00c; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:56:38.062Z.