DFW07CA117 · Cessna A188B
Cessna A188B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Fabens Airport (E35) to Fabens Airport (E35)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA117
- 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
- 0
- 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 A188B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N3863J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fabens Airport (E35), Fabens, TXTo Fabens Airport (E35), Fabens, TX
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 5,149-hour commercial pilot reported that his first flight of the day had been delayed due to thunderstorms moving through the area. The pilot added that as the agricultural airplane reached 50-60 mph during the takeoff roll, the tailwheel became airborne as the pilot encountered a gusting crosswind from the right requiring full right rudder and brakes. The pilot was not able to compensate for the existing conditions and the airplane departed the left side of the 4,120-foot long Runway 26. As the airplane exited the 20-foot wide runway, the 5,149-hour pilot retarded the engine power and dumped the 150-pounds load of agricultural mixture. About the same time, the right landing gear tire sank into the soft ground to the left of the runway and the airplane nosed-over. The airplane came to rest in the inverted position and the pilot was able to egress from the single-engine airplane without injuries. Both wings separated from the airframe during the accident sequence. Weather at the airport was reported as winds from 085 degrees at 2 to 5 knots, visibility 10 statute miles, with scattered clouds at 1,500 feet and an overcast ceiling at 5,200 feet, a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, a dew point of 16 degrees Celsius, and an altimeter setting of 30.14 inches of Mercury. The pilot added that there were thunderstorms in the area at the time of the mishap.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to compensate for the existing wind conditions during takeoff. A contributing factor was the crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA117
- Event ID
- 20070621X00772
- Case number
- DFW07CA117
- 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: 3728fffe011a70731c528dc80d7475648d2e76af14cc26f2281769a6036c552e; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:30:51.573Z.