GAA15CA267 · Cessna 180H
Cessna 180H · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI) to Delta Junction, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15CA267
- 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 180H
- 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
- N4763U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, AKTo Delta Junction, AK
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that he was making an approach to an airstrip along the bank of a river. During the approach to landing, on short final, the airplane encountered a right quartering tailwind. The airplane drifted left of course and the sink rate increased beyond what the pilot had planned. The pilot reported that he added power to go around, but did not apply enough right rudder to compensate for wind and the power setting. Subsequently, the airplane yawed left, impacted trees, and bounced one time before coming to rest on a gravel bar. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing, aileron, horizontal stabilizer, and elevator.
The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain and maintain yaw control during the approach and attempted go around, which resulted in impact with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15CA267
- Event ID
- 20150922X53258
- Case number
- GAA15CA267
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2015-09-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d6fbc9a7fddff7ced606e8706fba7ad83ff663f34ad7c35973f89ea947d77354; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:48:08.591Z.