ERA19FA113 · Cessna 182 S
Cessna 182 S · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ) to HXD · Hilton Head, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19FA113
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 182 S
- 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
- N26617
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ), Louisburg, NCTo HXD · Hilton Head, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot had planned to conduct a personal, instrument flight rules (IFR) flight in night instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). The clearance that the pilot received from air traffic control stipulated that after departure, the airplane was to turn about 50° left of the runway heading. Radar data showed that the airplane instead climbed along the departure runway heading for about 1 minute, and witnesses described that the airplane entered IMC around 200 to 300 feet above the ground. When the airplane reached an altitude of about 860 ft above ground level (agl), it entered a right turn. The airplane reached the top of its climb about 930 ft agl, and continued a tightening right turn while descending at an estimated rate of about 6,000 feet per minute. The pilot did not contact air traffic control and radar contact was lost in the vicinity of the accident site. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no preimpact mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
About 1 hour before the airplane departed, the pilot obtained an online weather briefing from a commercial vendor. The information in the briefing indicated that the airplane would be operating in IFR conditions with severe turbulence reported along the anticipated route of flight. The restricted visibility and low-level instrument meteorological conditions at night were conducive to the development of spatial disorientation. In addition, the airplane's flight track, which included altitude and directional changes that were inconsistent with the flight's clearance instructions, and the rapidly descending right turn, were consistent with the known effects of spatial disorientation. It is likely that the pilot developed spatial disorientation during the flight, which led to a loss of control.
A sedating, over-the-counter antihistamine (Cetirizine) was found in postaccident toxicology specimens taken from the pilot; however, the levels of the drug measured were three times below the therapeutic level. Additionally, ethanol was also detected in the some of the pilot's blood specimens but was not detected in the pilot's brain or muscle specimens. As a result, the ethanol detected was most likely from sources other than ingestion; thus, the pilot's use of cetirizine and the identified ethanol did not contribute to this accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's spatial disorientation and loss of airplane control following takeoff in night instrument meteorological conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19FA113
- Event ID
- 20190302X82302
- Case number
- ERA19FA113
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-03-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a05ba0a0a50e28934bebc1c8a24fe2c91010f8024e788cfad77666d6626e7321; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:54:54.693Z.