FTW99LA081 · Cessna 188
Cessna 188 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From WINSBORO, LA (no airport) to Alexandria International Airport (AEX)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA081
- 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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 188
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N8295G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From WINSBORO, LA (no airport)To Alexandria International Airport (AEX)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 · landing roll
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Alexandria, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot lost directional control of the tail-wheel equipped airplane, resulting in a ground loop on landing. The pilot was flying the airplane back to its home base after some maintenance discrepancies were repaired. One of the discrepancies was the steering capability of the airplane. According to the pilot, the aircraft had difficulty turning to the right without the use of the right brake. The pilot was told by the mechanic that the steering cables were adjusted. During the preflight for the return trip, the pilot noticed that there was still difficulty steering to the right; however, he elected to take-off and fly the airplane to its home base. The wheel landing was normal until the airplane slowed to 40 knots, then the airplane suddenly veered to the left about 90 degrees. The pilot stated that he tried to compensate with right rudder to no avail. The pilot stated that the tower reported the winds to be from 350 degrees at 6 knots just prior to landing. According to a certified mechanic and an FAA inspector who examined the airplane, no anomalies were noted with the steering system that would have prevented its normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during the landing roll resulting in an inadvertent ground loop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA081
- Event ID
- 20001205X00164
- Case number
- FTW99LA081
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: ff1efa2227bd63e0324e6bc14e749ee519165f71056f570de578424d1ed21bc1; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:53:17.652Z.