Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / ERA25LA104

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA25LA104

2025-01-17 Smyrna, Tennessee, United States Airport · MQY None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N21254

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 182P

Year of manufacture

1972 · 53 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR O-470 SERIES (230 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19721110

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A1C414

Registrant of record

HIGH WING 182 LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain an appropriate approach path, resulting in the airplane contacting a tree during a landing approach at night.

Factual narrative

While flying a visual approach to the runway at night, and in a gusting crosswind, the pilot turned from the base leg of the traffic pattern to final approach and corrected for the crosswind. The pilot transitioned from a crabbing crosswind correction to a slipping crosswind correction and noticed that he was below the glideslope for the runway as indicated by the precision approach pathway indicator lights. The pilot increased engine power to correct, but the airplane impacted the top of a tree, resulting in substantial damage to the right wing and right horizontal stabilizer. He subsequently landed the airplane uneventfully. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Descent/approach/glide path-Not attained/maintained
  • Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Tree(s)-Awareness of condition
  • Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Task monitoring/vigilance-Pilot
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Light condition-Dark-Effect on personnel

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_ERA25LA104.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗