LAX06CA218 · Cessna T206H
California Flight Center Cessna T206H · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA) to Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06CA218
- 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 T206H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N562H
- Operator
- California Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CATo Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, not corrected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane veered off the runway and ground looped during landing. On touchdown, the pilot retarded the throttle and noted an indicated airspeed of 60 knots. At this time, the airline transport pilot (ATP) passenger in the right seat retracted the flaps. The pilot applied brakes and the airplane turned sharply to the left. The pilot released the brakes and then lightly reapplied them. The airplane continued moving to the left and the pilot said he applied full right aileron and increased power. The airplane turned and banked further to the left, causing the left wing to contact the ground. The nose of the airplane came down and the propeller blades contacted the ground. The pilot reduced the power, returning the airplane to a level attitude. The airplane came to rest 30 to 40 feet left of the runway centerline on a heading of 320 degrees. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector examined the airplane. He did not find any abnormalities with the brakes. The wheels rotated freely and there were no flat spots or other signs of trauma to the tires.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06CA218
- Event ID
- 20060729X01050
- Case number
- LAX06CA218
- 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: 233136a25a6f654a13b148cec107a66a048d8f2f90d0c9f9b07180f9a9408934; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:43:13.482Z.