GAA15CA076 · Cessna 170B
Summit Aviation Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Bentonville Municipal-Louise M Thaden Field (VBT) to Carroll County Airport (4M1)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15CA076
- 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 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
- N3488C
- Operator
- Summit Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bentonville Municipal-Louise M Thaden Field (VBT), Bentonville, ARTo Carroll County Airport (4M1), Berryville, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 61 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an instructional flight in crosswind conditions, the pilot receiving instruction initiated the takeoff roll and once the airplane became airborne, the nose immediately rotated into the wind. The flight instructor took the flight controls and attempted to maintain directional control with right rudder, but the airplane touched down on the runway and ground looped. During the ground loop the right wing impacted the runway causing substantial damage to the wing.
The flight instructor reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The reported winds about the time of the accident were from 110 degrees true at 12 knots, and the runway heading was 180 degrees magnetic.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain directional control, which resulted in a ground loop on takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15CA076
- Event ID
- 20150518X41251
- Case number
- GAA15CA076
- 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: fdf9751c956e2588c9c41916003b114bd8e99bb2ebd3af8a67681c704e52b0d6; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:19:37.199Z.