NTSB ERA25LA325 — 2025-08-31 · Lebanon, Ohio, United States

Current FAA registration · N628FN

Make / Model: CESSNA 182S
Year of manufacture: 1998 · 27 years old at event
Engine: LYCOMING IO-540 SER (300 hp)
Seats / Engines: 4 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date: 19980608
ADS-B equipped: Yes — Mode-S A8347F

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

N628FN Cessna 182 None

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during takeoff, which resulted in a runway excursion and collision with a sign.

Factual narrative

The pilot was preparing to depart for a personal flight but had not correctly set the airplane’s flaps for takeoff. During the takeoff the pilot rotated the airplane, but it would not climb due to the incorrect flap setting and it remained in ground effect. The airplane drifted off the side of the runway in the prevailing crosswind and struck a taxiway sign with the left main landing gear and empennage, which resulted in substantial damage to the left horizontal stabilizer. The pilot subsequently landed the airplane in a field that was off to the side of the runway uneventfully. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

— Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
— Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_ERA25LA325.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Search this event elsewhere

External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (runway excursion). All research papers