WPR16FA116 · Cessna 182 H
D & J Air Adventures Cessna 182 H · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Port Allen Airport (PAK) to Port Allen Airport (PAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16FA116
- 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
- 5 · 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 182 H
- 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
- N2007X
- Operator
- D & J Air Adventures
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Port Allen Airport (PAK), Hanapepe, HITo Port Allen Airport (PAK), Hanapepe, HI
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1965)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot and four passenger-skydivers were departing in the airplane on a local area skydiving flight in visual meteorological conditions. Witnesses observed the airplane make a normal takeoff from the runway. Two witnesses reported that, shortly after takeoff, the engine seemed to stop producing power. Subsequently, the airplane rolled to the right while rapidly losing altitude. The airplane completed about a 360° rotation and impacted terrain in a nose-down attitude.
One of the four cameras recovered from the wreckage contained a 33-second video that captured the flight from the takeoff roll through the impact. The video showed the airplane after takeoff in a positive climb and a slight left roll. About 24 seconds into the recording, the video's audio track revealed a reduction in the volume of the engine sound. Two seconds later, the airplane started to roll to the right. The movement of the camera became increasingly erratic, consistent with the airplane entering an unusual flight attitude. The engine sound continued to decrease until the airplane impacted the ground. A sound spectrum study showed that the engine rpm decreased from 2,650 to 1,215 over the final 9 seconds of the flight, consistent with a partial loss of engine power.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical failures or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane was estimated to be about 10 lbs above its maximum gross weight and within the center-of-gravity limits published for the maximum gross weight; therefore, weight and balance was likely not a factor in the accident.
The weather conditions at the time of takeoff were conductive to the formation of carburetor ice at glide power. Given that the airplane was operating at a high power setting at the time of takeoff, carburetor icing was unlikely.
Based on the witness observations and the onboard video recording, it is likely that the pilot failed to maintain airspeed following a partial loss of engine power, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall. The reason for the partial loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed following a partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examination, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16FA116
- Event ID
- 20160523X75309
- Case number
- WPR16FA116
- 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: b2936f806c4026b6179aa69ed5620f40237474fe7ce07a7dca24849fd53a7cf7; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:47:19.349Z.