CEN12LA061 · Cessna 401A
Cessna 401A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Natchitoches Regional Airport (IER) to Gladewater Municipal Airport (07F)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA061
- 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 401A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 401
- 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
- N531MH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Natchitoches Regional Airport (IER), Natchitoches, LATo Gladewater Municipal Airport (07F), Gladewater, 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 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While preparing to enter the traffic pattern, the pilot checked the wind on his weather-equipped global positioning system and also heard a wind update on the radio for the nearest weather facility. On the basis of the information obtained, the pilot understood that the current wind was from 170 degrees at 20 to 25 knots. He entered the traffic pattern in a left downwind for runway 14 and began to slow the airplane for landing. The pilot stated that when the airplane was on short final at an airspeed of about 120 knots, a gusting crosswind pushed it right of the runway centerline. The airplane began to descend rapidly, and the pilot added full power in an attempt to go around. However, the airplane rolled to the right, and the airplane crashed on the right side of the runway. No preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures were found that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane during the landing and attempted go-around in a gusty crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA061
- Event ID
- 20111113X32052
- Case number
- CEN12LA061
- 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. 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: 5e3b4ae451693e7eff16e0be48a905162b370d19899755e0af0db318996ebd6f; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:55:44.004Z.