ANC14CA089 · Cessna 180 UNDESIGNAT
Cessna 180 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From Kodiak Airport (ADQ) to Kodiak Airport (ADQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC14CA089
- 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 180 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N2483C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kodiak Airport (ADQ), Kodiak, AKTo Kodiak Airport (ADQ), Kodiak, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 60 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was back taxiing on the runway for departure in a tundra tire tailwheel-equipped airplane. He stated he had made one takeoff from the airport earlier that day, he had checked the weather before this departure and noticed that the wind had increased slightly. There were other aircraft using the same runway and he felt confident that he could handle the wind. While back taxiing he noticed that he was using heavy braking when a gust of wind pushed the airplane to the left. He stated that the brakes were too hot to hold the aircraft straight, resulting in a ground loop. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left and right wing, aileron, horizontal stabilizer, and elevator. The pilot stated that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.The pilot stated in the recommendation section of the NTSB Accident/Incident Reporting Form 6120.1, that the large 29 inch tundra tires caused the brakes to heat up much faster than the 850 tires that he was used to. He recommended limiting downwind taxiing to short distances, and in no more than 12 knots of wind while operating with large tires.
Probable cause
The pilots failure to maintain control of the airplane while taxiing in gusty wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC14CA089
- Event ID
- 20140930X52103
- Case number
- ANC14CA089
- 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: c543d8f112e74bd3fefdf45fe46e55a6c12f8983a25123eac53bd8fb25bc2741; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:49:15.777Z.