WPR24LA098 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA098
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 182A
- 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
- N6323B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 67 years (built 1957)
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 power plant
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, as he exited the airport traffic pattern, he noticed that engine oil was accumulating on the left portion of the windscreen, and he decided to make a precautionary landing. During the approach, the left portion of the windscreen was obscured, and the pilot switched from the left to the right seat. The pilot fastened his seat belt, continued the approach, and touched down on a soft spot on the snow-covered turf runway just short of his aim point. The airplane’s nose landing gear dug into the soft surface and the airplane nosed over. Additionally, the pilot reported that during his postflight inspection, he noticed that the oil filler cap was separated from the filler port and dangling by its security chain. The pilot opined that during his preflight inspection, he saw the oil filler cap but did not physically twist the cap to ensure its security. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to secure the oil filler cap during the preflight inspection, which resulted in a precautionary landing on the soft surface and subsequent nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA098
- Event ID
- 20240229193862
- Case number
- WPR24LA098
- 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: 8e2788b7d1ae4a6f3203bbd845b4f61eddcf6e9d0b0d5b3a48aa4437896a7ea4; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:33:09.380Z.