CEN26LA033 · Cessna 182H
Cessna 182H · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK) to Gastons Airport (3M0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA033
- 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 182H
- 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
- N2040X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK), Branson, MOTo Gastons Airport (3M0), Lakeview, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1965)
- 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
- Landing
- 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)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Physical
- 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 pilot reported that during the landing, he noticed that his approach path was taking the airplane towards an unexpected ditch short of the runway threshold. The pilot attempted to correct by increasing engine power; however, the airplane impacted on the berm short of the runway which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage. The pilot mistakenly set the flaps to the improper setting which had altered the airplane’s approach path and degraded aircraft performance. The pilot reported there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. In addition, the pilot reported that he had not been sleeping well for the past several weeks and was likely fatigued and exhausted.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain a proper approach path during landing which resulted in a collision with terrain short of the runway. Contributing to the accident was the improper flap position during landing, and the pilot being fatigued.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA033
- Event ID
- 20251103201949
- Case number
- CEN26LA033
- 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: 525d00771c639bfcf081a34f8a64907f73af8ccf20d871e34be1c0a0a2960db3; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:31:07.156Z.