ERA15CA302 · Cessna 206G
Cessna 206G · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Arthur Dunn Air Park (X21) to Arthur Dunn Air Park (X21)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA302
- 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 206G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N206DZ
- Operator
- Skydive Space Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arthur Dunn Air Park (X21), Titusville, FLTo Arthur Dunn Air Park (X21), Titusville, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1964)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
The pilot stated that he was conducting a skydiver "jump run", and prior to letting the skydivers out the radio squelch interrupter failed causing a constant static noise. After letting the skydivers out over the airport the pilot set up the descent based on the winds acquired for the previous landing on runway 22. As he circled for landing the manifold pressure indication "dropped off" to zero. The pilot was unsure if he had a partial power loss or a gauge failure. He could not hear or feel the engine indications because of the static noise on the radio squelch and descent profile, so he committed to a power off glide path for his approach. The pilot stated that the airplanes approach speed was about 100 knots prior to the threshold for landing. The airplane touched down beyond the threshold and as the pilot applied full braking the airplane "ballooned" back into the air. The pilot attempted to stop the airplane but was unsuccessful and exited the runway, coming to rest after colliding with a ditch.
An examination of the airplane revealed that the empennage and firewall was buckled during the landing sequence. The airplane was equipped with a JPI engine monitor and review of the data did not reveal a loss in engine power during the flight.
The wind reported from a nearby weather station revealed that winds were 010 degrees at 6 knots at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's landing with a tailwind at an excessive speed, which resulted in a runway excursion, and collision with a ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA302
- Event ID
- 20150810X43757
- Case number
- ERA15CA302
- 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: da56c1a8f533f249a8d71d6ba26da319281d631a45dbb76a6fad00a1549e2051; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:38:49.603Z.