ERA19FA179 · Cessna TR182
Cessna TR182 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to St Simons Island Airport (SSI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19FA179
- 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
- 1 · 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 TR182
- 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
- N6123T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo St Simons Island Airport (SSI), St. Simons Isla, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1982)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The cross-country flight proceeded uneventfully in good weather conditions until the airplane was about 5 miles from the destination airport. The airplane had descended gradually from an en route altitude of 4,000 to 1,700 ft mean sea level (msl) over a period of about 4 minutes. However, between 1,700 ft and the second-to-last radar target at 1,300 ft msl, and between that radar target and the final target at 900 ft msl, the airplane descended 400 ft in about 4 seconds between the targets. The airplane subsequently impacted terrain in a wooded area. The tree scars and the lack of a debris path at the accident site were consistent with a near-vertical descent. Examination of the wreckage revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation.
The 80-year-old pilot had high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which would not be considered impairing. Some plaques were found on the pilot's thoracic aorta during his autopsy, but, due to the pilot's extensive injuries, his heart was not available for examination to determine if he had any coronary artery disease. Thus, the investigation of this accident could not determine if the pilot's medical conditions contributed to the accident. Ethanol was detected in the pilot's muscle tissue. Given the lack of ethanol in the pilot's lung tissue and the presence of n-propanol in his muscle tissue, it is likely that some or all of the identified ethanol was from sources other than ingestion. Thus, the identified ethanol did not contribute to this accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of airplane control during approach for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19FA179
- Event ID
- 20190525X02531
- Case number
- ERA19FA179
- 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: 280c7ba465b2743f33c234e3f3bc0f37c06eded6927d22997c41ad1998ffe3c1; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:58:51.447Z.