ERA14CA003 · Cessna 305A A
Three Point Aviation Cessna 305A A · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Sunbury Airport (71N) to Slatington Airport (69N)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA003
- 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 305A A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 305
- 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
- N305CR
- Operator
- Three Point Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sunbury Airport (71N), Sunbury, PATo Slatington Airport (69N), Slatington Airport, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 63 years (built 1950)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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, the airplane was on a stabilized approach to runway 1. During the landing flare the airplane began drifting to the right. The pilot stated that he applied left rudder to compensate for the drift. Upon touchdown, the pilot applied the brakes and the airplane flipped upside down with the tail lifting up first. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector revealed substantial damage to the fuselage and vertical stabilizer. The FAA inspector also noted that the airfield wind sock had not been properly maintained and was not accurate. Wheel brake continuity was verified by the FAA inspector during postcrash inspection. The reported wind at Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE), Allentown, Pennsylvania, about 10 nautical miles to the southeast of the accident site, was from 200 degrees at 5 knots. The pilot did not report any pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for the wind conditions during landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to land with a tailwind condition and the airfield's inaccurate windsock.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA003
- Event ID
- 20131018X52132
- Case number
- ERA14CA003
- 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: c0718df289e652be0d8384808e9a9e2329c360738c31efd1b596c4b19784ab14; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:59:14.276Z.