ERA15CA027 · Cessna A188B
Air Cessna A188B · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ) to Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA027
- 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 A188B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N731PM
- Operator
- Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ), Louisburg, NCTo Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ), Louisburg, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that after dispersing a load he returned, and landed uneventfully on runway 5, which was the runway in use, reporting that the wind was from the west northwest at approximately 9 knots with gusts to 16 knots. He loaded the ant bait, taxied out, and during the takeoff roll from runway 5, about 600 to 800 feet down the runway, he indicated that he, "really got hit with a gust" estimated to be at 20 knots. When the wind gust occurred the tail wheel had not been raised from the runway yet. He indicated that he lost directional control resulting in a ground loop, and the airplane weather vaned, hit the edge, and bounced then came down with the sideload resulting in damage. He attempted to correct with rudder and brake but he was unable to. He indicated there was nothing wrong with the airplane that caused the accident.
A surface observation taken from the accident airport about 5 minutes before the accident indicates the wind was variable from 280 to 340 degrees at 7 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA027
- Event ID
- 20141027X90103
- Case number
- ERA15CA027
- 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: f3b05037c4435c53a3e83a5642df08694734a23c123cf8f5ab4e0f31be7f1d43; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:53:01.918Z.