DEN07CA084 · Cessna 180C
Cessna 180C · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF) to Taos Regional Airport (SKX)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN07CA084
- 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 180C
- 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
- N9253T
- Operator
- John L. Ranweiler · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF), Santa Fe, NMTo Taos Regional Airport (SKX), Taos, NM
- 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
- Pilot in command › Crosswind component, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he was taking off on runway 02. The airplane weathervaned to the left and the right wing tip contacted the runway. The airplane nosed over and the propeller struck the runway. The right wing rear spar and aileron were bent, and the engine cowling was buckled. SAF wind was reportedly from 320 degrees at 11 knots. An examination of the airplane's systems conducted by the FAA revealed no anomalies. The Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH) for the 1960 Cessna 180C does not give a maximum demonstrated crosswind component. However, the 1977 Cessna 180K POH lists the maximum demonstrated crosswind component as 12 knots. The computed crosswind component at the time of the accident was 13 knots (headwind component 8 knots).
Probable cause
Exceeding the airplane's maximum demonstrated crosswind component during the takeoff roll. A contributing factor was the crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN07CA084
- Event ID
- 20070514X00555
- Case number
- DEN07CA084
- 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: 14f5b83454cca5425defa0afe7d7a3cd7ffaf4077055bd53bb3a4888d1730e60; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:54:51.812Z.