CEN12FA090 · Cessna 182R
Cessna 182R · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Winston Field (KSNK) to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport (KSRR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12FA090
- 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
- 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 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
- N9408X
- Operator
- Jerry D. Greene · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winston Field (KSNK), Snyder, TXTo Sierra Blanca Regional Airport (KSRR), Ruidoso, NM
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The radar air traffic controller advised the pilot of an area of light precipitation 15 miles ahead at his 12 o’clock position, about 10 miles in diameter, and extending about 10 miles along his flight path. Shortly thereafter, the non-instrument-rated pilot said that he was turning around due to the poor visibility. A few minutes later, the pilot said he would make another attempt to penetrate the weather then consider landing at an alternate airport if he was unable to get through. The last radio transmission from the pilot occurred when he acknowledged the controller's advisement that radar services were terminated and the instruction to change to an advisory frequency. When the airplane was reported overdue, a search was initiated and the wreckage was located 4 days later. GPS information indicated that the airplane was in a right spiral at a ground speed of 207 knots. The recovered airspeed indicator faceplate bore a “slap mark” at 150 knots. It is likely that the airplane entered instrument meteorological conditions, and the pilot was unable to maintain control.
Probable cause
The pilot's intentional attempt to fly into adverse weather, which resulted in an in-flight loss of control. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of instrument experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12FA090
- Event ID
- 20111130X21518
- Case number
- CEN12FA090
- 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: b8bd399c4f09c191a05484c7270634948b4f1919bcc3596b6ff9f52f148be7ff; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:01:19.554Z.