WPR22FA309 · Cessna 152
United Flight Services Cessna 152 and Alm Holding Cessna 340A · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22FA309
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N49931
- Operator
- United Flight Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 340A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 340
- 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
- N740WJ
- Operator
- Alm Holding
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Turlock Municipal Airport (O15), Turlock, CATo Watsonville Municipal Airport (WVI), Watsonville, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 43 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
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the single-engine airplane was operating in the airport traffic pattern and had been making position reports on the airport’s common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF). The pilot of the multi-engine airplane made an initial radio call on the CTAF 10 miles from the airport, announcing his intention to perform a straight-in approach for landing. Both pilots continued to make appropriate position reports, but did not communicate with each other until the multi-engine airplane was about one mile from the airport and the single-engine airplane had turned onto the base leg of the traffic pattern for landing. Realizing that the multi-engine airplane was converging upon him, the pilot of the single-engine airplane announced a go-around, and the airplanes collided on final approach for the runway about 150 ft above ground level (agl). Examination of the airplanes revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The multi-engine airplane’s wing flaps and landing gear were both retracted at the accident site, consistent with the pilot’s failure to configure the airplane for landing, and flight track information indicated that the pilot maintained a ground speed of about 180 knots throughout the approach until the collision occurred, which may have reduced the time available for him to see and avoid the single-engine airplane. The toxicology report for the pilot of the single-engine airplane revealed THC, metabolites for THC, metabolites for cocaine, and ketamine; the low amounts of each drug were not considered causal to the accident. The toxicology report for the multi-engine airplane pilot revealed THC, and metabolites of THC; the low amounts of each drug were not considered causal to the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot of the multi-engine airplane to see and avoid the single-engine airplane while performing a straight-in approach for landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22FA309
- Event ID
- 20220818105763
- Case number
- WPR22FA309
- 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, 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: 45261a0e239b14945b13c228b2eff99c6a9ed4809fb81662eacecdcc5466b991; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:11:24.195Z.