LAX06LA192 · Cessna 180A
Cessna 180A · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Marina Municipal Airport (OAR) to Frazier Lake Airpark (1C9)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06LA192
- 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 180A
- 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
- N180LG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marina Municipal Airport (OAR), Marina, CATo Frazier Lake Airpark (1C9), Hollister, CA
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Fuselage, seat › Not secured
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Improper
- 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 pilot's seat slid aft during the takeoff roll and the airplane nosed over after veering off the runway surface. As the pilot powered the airplane for the takeoff roll, his seat slid aft and he was unable to reach the controls to maintain control of the airplane. It veered left off the runway and came to rest inverted. Post accident examination of the seat track showed that the seat locking pin positively engaged in all of the seat track holes. The most forward hole contained a bolt used as a forward seat stop to prevent the seat from coming off of the seat track. When the seat pin was engaged in this hole, full depth engagement was not possible. Rub marks were present on the bolt shank that was visible through the seat track hole. The pilot normally flew the airplane with the seat in its forward most position. The airplane manufacturer did not design the seat stop and there was no installation record of the bolt used as a seat stop in the airplane maintenance records. The airplane was equipped with an after-market backup seat stop to prevent the seat from slipping aft if the primary seat locking mechanism failed. Although there were no mechanical problems noted with the device, the backup stop was not secured to the seat track.
Probable cause
the installation of the unapproved forward seat stop by unknown maintenance personnel, which did not allow for full depth engagement of the seat lock pin, resulting in the seat slipping aft during the takeoff roll and subsequent loss of directional control. A contributing factor to the accident was the pilot's failure to secure the backup seat stop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06LA192
- Event ID
- 20060607X00713
- Case number
- LAX06LA192
- 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: dc9a2b9a466c0bb402bf20019d488e075e41c314acebbb3f646b1be14aa95104; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:48:24.492Z.