FTW98LA077 · Cessna 180J
Cessna 180J · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while taxiing
From Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW) to Tri-County Aerodrome (48TX)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA077
- 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 180J
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N121KS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW)To Tri-County Aerodrome (48TX), Whitewright, TX
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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 › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the tailwheel-equipped airplane was being taxied toward the centerline of runway 34R, it turned to the left, nosed down, and came to rest balanced on the left main landing gear, the left wing tip, and the propeller spinner. According to the pilot, the left turn was due to a wind gust that 'hit the airplane and spun it counterclockwise.' Following the nose down, the pilot got out of the airplane and attempted to hold the airplane; however, the wind blew the airplane over onto its back. The pilot indicated that the winds at the time of the accident were from 280 to 310 degrees at approximately 20 to 25 knots with gusts to 30 knots. At 1353, seven minutes prior to the accident, the recorded winds at the airport were from a true heading of 300 degrees at 24 knots with gusts to 31 knots. The crosswind component for a takeoff on runway 34R (true heading 352 degrees) with a wind from 300 degrees at 30 knots was calculated to be 23 knots. According to the Pilot's Operating Handbook, the maximum demonstrated crosswind velocity for the airplane was 12 knots. The pilot stated that the accident could have been prevented by 'selection of runway that more aligns with current winds.'
Probable cause
the pilot's improper planning/decision, by allowing the airplane to get in a situation, where he could not compensate for wind conditions. A related factor was the gusty crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA077
- Event ID
- 20001208X09311
- Case number
- FTW98LA077
- 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: 23fb407eb4067ae9daffa42462e463fae1be64d0707ff9a6876b18fa1427654d; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:08:03.888Z.