WPR10GA113 · Cessna 182R
United States Department of Interior Cessna 182R · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Newport Municipal Airport (KONP) to Corvallis Municipal Airport (KCVO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10GA113
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N702
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newport Municipal Airport (KONP), Newport, ORTo Corvallis Municipal Airport (KCVO), Corvallis, OR
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flightcrew had completed a public-use migratory bird survey flight. After landing, the pilot purchased fuel and updated the flight plan. The pilot stated to the flight service station briefer that he was aware of the area AIRMETs (airmen’s meteorological information) for mountain obscuration and turbulence that were active for the area of intended flight. The weather conditions at the destination 30 minutes prior to the accident were calm wind; 5 miles visibility; few clouds at 700 feet, broken clouds at 4,400 feet, and overcast at 5,000 feet.
The pilot departed for the destination, which was located 38 miles east and where the airplane was based. Although the pilot had updated his flight plan before they departed, the pilot never activated the flight plan once airborne. The route between the departure airport and destination airport consisted of flight over mountainous terrain with terrain elevations between 1,000 and 1,750 feet mean sea level (msl). Radar and global positioning system data showed that the airplane proceeded east at an altitude of around 2,800 feet msl and followed a highway. Twenty minutes after takeoff and 14 miles northwest of the destination, the airplane changed to southeasterly flight path towards the destination. The airplane started a very gradual descent and, after about 2 minutes, impacted trees at 1,500-feet msl while in level flight; the airplane was about 9 miles northwest of the destination.
Weather analysis indicated that conditions at the accident site leading up to the time of the accident were low clouds at 700 feet above ground level (agl) with ceilings at 4,000 feet. Surface conditions were near saturation, indicative of precipitation reaching the ground and/or reduced visibilities. Weather radar imagery indicated the accident airplane was below an area of light precipitation during the final portion of flight. Conditions between 300 feet agl and 1,500 feet were highly favorable for cloud sustainment and/or development. A much deeper cloudy region dominated altitudes above 4,000 feet, and the freezing level was about 5,000 feet. A postimpact examination did not reveal any anomalies with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from terrain while operating into a known area of mountain obscuration due to low clouds, precipitation, and mist.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10GA113
- Event ID
- 20100118X40857
- Case number
- WPR10GA113
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2010-01-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e1d82918d87e72a8a59fea4ca475ade40ee54790b0f5dc60b6e6d1c48a283b6d; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:37:16.178Z.