IAD03CA072 · Cessna C-170
Cessna C-170 · Accident: abrupt maneuver during landing
From Biddeford Municipal Airport (B19) to Back Acres Airport (ME46)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD03CA072
- 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 C-170
- Aircraft type
- Cessna C-170
- 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
- N11576
- Operator
- James Baker
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Biddeford Municipal Airport (B19), Biddeford, METo Back Acres Airport (ME46), Kennebunkport, ME
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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 › Proper touchdown point, not obtained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had not flown into the airport previously, but he visited the airport the day before the accident. He walked the runway and noted the obstacles located at both ends. The morning of the accident, the pilot flew to the airport, and noted the 4-6 knot wind favored runway 20. During landing, the airplane touched down about half way down the runway. When the pilot realized that he would not be able to stop before reaching the end of the runway, he made a hard left turn. During the turn, the right main landing gear failed. Runway 20 was a 1,000-foot-long and 200-foot-wide turf runway, with 35-foot trees located at both ends. There were also 25-foot power lines located at the end of runway 20. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical deficiencies with the airplane or engine, and weather at a nearby airport included calm winds.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to obtain the proper touchdown point, which resulted in the abrupt maneuver and subsequent failure of the landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD03CA072
- Event ID
- 20040525X00661
- Case number
- IAD03CA072
- 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: 7f02cb543f69c474a45d20535a706b7b77084fbe5091a9a314671b7d163333b2; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:37:43.953Z.