LAX08CA079 · Cessna 180H
Cessna 180H · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY) to Mineral Canyon, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA079
- 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 180H
- 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
- N180LH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY), Moab, UTTo Mineral Canyon, UT
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While waiting in line to takeoff, the pilot observed a Super Cub and a Cessna 172 depart, and on the basis of how those airplanes behaved, he thought that the winds were calm. The pilot encountered a dust devil and crosswind during the takeoff roll. The airplane became airborne, settled to the ground off the runway surface, and struck a runway distance marker. Examination of the airplane revealed a dent in the horizontal stabilizer.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions and failure to maintain directional control. A contributing factor was the unexpected dust devil.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA079
- Event ID
- 20080411X00462
- Case number
- LAX08CA079
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: aa760eb0a46de9e6572e240b2c289e2e0e4b3d47497c7ea3a1372cb27a4cb560; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:31:28.914Z.