GAA16CA353 · Cessna 182 L
Windjox Cessna 182 L · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Choteau Airport (CII) to Schafer USFS Airport (8U2)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA353
- 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 182 L
- 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
- N42469
- Operator
- Windjox
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Choteau Airport (CII), Choteau, MTTo Schafer USFS Airport (8U2), Hungry Horse, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1968)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Runway excursion
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he had landed at the accident airstrip previously in September of 2015 with no difficulty. He further reported that the airstrip had about 3000 feet of runway but about 400 feet was unusable for landing due to its roughness.
The pilot reported that on his first landing attempt the approach speed was too fast and he elected to go-around. He estimated his approach speed during the accident landing about 80 miles per hour. The pilot further reported that the airplane touched down about 500 feet down the runway; he applied the brakes but was unable to stop prior to the end of the runway. The airplane overran the runway and impacted trees, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage.
The pilot did not report any mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
After the pilot and passenger egressed from the wreckage the pilot observed that the grass runway was wet from the morning dew, and the grass was about 7 inches tall.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to land on unsuitable wet terrain, and his failure to stop prior to the end of the runway, which resulted in a runway overrun and impact with tree(s).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA353
- Event ID
- 20160703X64604
- Case number
- GAA16CA353
- 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: 8f3051bdac83556c6bc7dd932473aa9c42c9b35df6d16991af42c53a2a26c4ad; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:36:07.222Z.