NYC03LA196 · Cessna 180D
Cessna 180D · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Greenville, ME (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03LA196
- 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
- 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 180D
- 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
- N6445X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenville, ME (no airport)To not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was receiving a refresher course in seaplane flying. While conducting the fifth takeoff of the day, with the private pilot at the controls, the private pilot observed that he had no aileron control as the airplane lifted off from the lake. After the flight instructor assumed the controls, the airplane rolled to the right, impacted the water, and sank to a depth of 60 feet. Examination of the wreckage revealed that a turnbuckle was separated from the right aileron cable. The turnbuckle was not safety-wired. The airplane had accumulated about 55 hours of operation since it's last annual inspection. Examination of the airplane's engine maintenance logs revealed an entry that stated, "Removed and replaced left and right aileron control cables, 0752015-22. Replace aileron carry thru cable, 0510105-12, IAW Chapter 6-6-18 A,B,C. Rigged IAW par 6-20 A, thru I." The entry was signed and acknowledged, "I certify this Aircraft has been inspected I/A/W an annual inspection and determined to be in an airworthy condition."
Probable cause
The inadequate installation and inspection of an aileron cable by maintenance personnel, which resulted in a loss of control in-flight and subsequent collision with water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03LA196
- Event ID
- 20031006X01659
- Case number
- NYC03LA196
- 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, coordinates. 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: 1bf4aa3e5c24cabab90e5cefa43289c4e071762f74d00a54899639bf3da692d0; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:22:25.762Z.