WPR13FA236 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Middletown, CA to Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13FA236
- 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
- 2 · 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 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N2865C
- Operator
- Bruce A Rhymes · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Middletown, CATo Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN), Auburn, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 59 years (built 1954)
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot's friend reported that he observed the accident airplane enter the airport traffic pattern but that he then diverted his attention to putting his airplane inside a hangar. Shortly after, when the accident airplane had not arrived, he immediately notified local authorities. The airplane wreckage was located the following morning in a heavily wooded area almost directly in line with the runway. Postaccident examination of the airframe, flight control system, and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
GPS data revealed that the accident airplane entered the downwind leg of the airport traffic pattern and proceeded to turn left onto the base leg and final approach to the runway. The last three GPS data points showed the airplane at a groundspeed of about 64 knots, which was well above the stall speed. The GPS data showed that the airplane was well above the 3-degree glidepath to both the runway threshold and the precision approach path indicator location. Wreckage and impact signatures were consistent with a stall and subsequent spin and a near-vertical impact with terrain. However, the reason for the stall could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during approach to landing, which resulted in an inadvertent stall and subsequent spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13FA236
- Event ID
- 20130519X61317
- Case number
- WPR13FA236
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2013-05-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dcc4a24fa6bddaf4f4557be052942b9bcf8e3c47288ae9e421e91a780af6e2be; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:57:04.934Z.