WPR15FA241 · Cessna T182T

The owner/pilot and another pilot were on a visual flight rules personal cross-country flight near mountainous terrain. The wreckage was discovered after the sheriff's department responded to a call of a forest fire in the area. There were no reported witnesses to the accident sequence. Examination of the accident site indicated that the airplane impacted a hillside at an elevation of 3,093 ft above mean sea level, which was 2,029 ft above the departure airport's elevation. The 45-degree angle cut damage signature on a tree and the propeller damage signatures indicated that the engine was developing power at the time of impact. The fuselage, wings, and most of the empennage were consumed by a postimpact fire. No evidence of any preimpact mechanical anomalies was discovered with the engine or airframe.

It could not be determined which pilot occupied which seat and who was manipulating the flight controls when the accident occurred. It is unknown why the pilots attempted to fly over the mountain range to the east rather than to use the most common flight route down the valley toward the south. Further, the location where they attempted to cross the rising terrain was very close to the airport, and a witness had seen the airplane depart and fly eastbound at an altitude of about 400 ft above ground level. Therefore, the pilots had a reduced amount of time and distance to climb the airplane to an altitude sufficient to clear the mountain range. The pilot's decision to turn eastbound to cross the mountain range placed the airplane in a situation that prevented a successful crossing, and the pilot failed to recognize that the airplane was unable to climb above the terrain until it was too late to escape.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset