CEN21LA121 · Cessna 182Q
D & S Aviation Cessna 182Q · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Southland Field (KUXL) to Southland Field (KUXL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA121
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 182Q
- 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
- N4765N
- Operator
- D & S Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southland Field (KUXL), Sulphur, LATo Southland Field (KUXL), Sulphur, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1979)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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, who had recently purchased a share of the accident airplane, and a flight instructor were conducting a local flight to practice maneuvers. Just before the accident, the airplane reached about 4,500 ft above ground level and the airspeed steadily decreased. The airplane began a slow descent, which increased rapidly until the final recorded point. In the last 18 seconds of recorded data, the airplane made a right turn and descended about 11,250 ft per minute.
Witnesses close to the accident site but at different locations, reported that they observed the airplane come straight down, nose first to the ground. One witness reported that no smoke was coming from the airplane, and he never saw the cockpit. Both witnesses reported the engine was loud.
The airplane impacted soft, muddy terrain and the main wreckage, including the engine, propeller, fuselage, and empennage, was embedded about 15 ft deep. A debris field that consisted of the wings and smaller airplane components extended about 40 yards from the crater. A postaccident examination of the engine and airframe did not reveal any preimpact anomalies, although the examination was limited due to the extensive damage. Due to the propeller damage and the high-speed impact with terrain, it is likely that the engine was operating at a high-power setting during the accident sequence.
Due to the limited medical evidence, whether a medical condition or effects from a substance contributed to this accident could not be determined.
Probable cause
The flight instructor did not maintain control of the airplane during training maneuvers, which resulted in a rapid, steep descent and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA121
- Event ID
- 20210203102590
- Case number
- CEN21LA121
- 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, cause areas. 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: b153b6de479655c8c742be82aa8cbb57de58acba4b4dd2fff56100fee4788c3d; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:24:58.097Z.