ANC15IA006 · Cessna 180J
Cessna 180J · Incident: flight control system malfunction/failure during takeoff
From Nome Airport (PAOM) to Nome Airport (PAOM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC15IA006
- 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
- Incident
- 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 180J
- 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
- N393B
- Operator
- Otton Darrin L
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nome Airport (PAOM), Nome, AKTo Nome Airport (PAOM), Nome, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1973)
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, shortly after takeoff, the airplane made an uncommanded hard right turn. He attempted to correct for the right turn with left rudder, but the airplane continued turning right. The pilot then input nearly full left aileron, and the airplane began a gradual left turn. After the pilot returned the ailerons to the neutral position, the airplane again immediately turned right. The pilot corrected with left aileron and then made an emergency landing to the departure runway. During the emergency landing, the airplane veered right, exited the runway, and impacted a snow berm, which resulted in minor damage to the landing gear.
Examination of the rudder control system revealed that the right tailwheel steering cable had jumped off its pulley and became bound between the pulley and the pulley bracket, which disabled the rudder system. The pulley's guard pin was in place, and the steering cable had separated about 9 inches from the rudder bellcrank and exhibited features consistent with overload.
Probable cause
The disengagement and subsequent binding of the right tailwheel steering cable, which disabled the rudder system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC15IA006
- Event ID
- 20141230X11811
- Case number
- ANC15IA006
- 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: 3ee78d8ab25633dce69d1879b5aaaed09d88503aaa11b41d7a025b83ac36b4f0; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:00:14.884Z.