GAA17CA202 · Cessna 182 P
Avcenter Cessna 182 P · Accident: loss of lift while maneuvering
From Nampa Municipal Airport (MAN) to Nampa Municipal Airport (MAN)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA202
- 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 P
- 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
- N52743
- Operator
- Avcenter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nampa Municipal Airport (MAN), Nampa, IDTo Nampa Municipal Airport (MAN), Nampa, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1974)
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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 lift
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while flying in mountainous terrain around 9,500 ft mean sea level (700 to 1,200 ft above the ground), the airplane encountered a downdraft. He added that he immediately turned away from the mountainside in a right turn, added full power, selected 10º of flaps, and pitched the nose up to maintain the airplane's maximum angle-of-climb airspeed (Vx). Subsequently, the airplane was unable to climb, and it then impacted wooded, snow-covered terrain along the mountainside.
The fuselage and both wings sustained substantial damage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The calculated density altitude near the flightpath was about 10,339 ft. According to the Federal Aviation Administration Koch Chart, the airplane would have experienced a 50% decrease to the normal climb rate. The high-density altitude conditions likely contributed to the airplane's inability to establish a climb.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to maneuver the airplane over mountainous terrain in high-density altitude conditions, which resulted in the airplane’s inability to maintain altitude or establish a climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA202
- Event ID
- 20170327X44109
- Case number
- GAA17CA202
- 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, coordinates. 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: ad1fb9d328e1f286787ae6c2e9aedf2e1dd4561f9d4441d5ce56fe48493915fd; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:07:21.147Z.