WPR20FA049 · Cessna 182 F
Cessna 182 F · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20FA049
- 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 182 F
- 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
- N3371U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1963)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Wire
- 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 › Physical
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed his home airport about an hour after sunset for a flight to test the automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast system that had been recently updated on the airplane. Radar data indicated the airplane flew for about 4 minutes on a southwest heading then flew a figure-eight pattern before heading back toward the airport on a northeast heading. The airplane appeared to be on approach to the airport when it impacted umarked and unlit high-tension power lines about 1 mile south of the airport. Postaccident examination of the airplane and engine revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Toxicology results suggest the pilot had recently used cannabis based on the relative ratios of Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (the main psychoactive component in cannabis) and its metabolites. Specific performance effects of cannabis include decreased ability to concentrate and maintain attention. Impairment in retention time and tracking, subjective sleepiness, distortion of time and distance, vigilance, and loss of coordination in divided attention tasks have been reported. The specific impairing effects from the pilot’s recent use of cannabis likely included impaired judgment and slowed reaction time, which contributed to his unsafe altitude while still 1 mile from the runway, resulting in the impact with the power lines.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from power lines due to his impairment from cannabis.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20FA049
- Event ID
- 20191222X10029
- Case number
- WPR20FA049
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-12-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: db9cdbccef2a443165cc882f7dcfe691fe384e0eec2419b847791174e5aef033; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:09:46.967Z.