WPR16LA083 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From Boulder, UT to Boulder, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA083
- 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 180
- 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
- N4696B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boulder, UTTo Boulder, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 61 years (built 1955)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that, during the takeoff run from the 2,100-ft-long soft, unimproved dirt airstrip, he observed that the propeller rpm was 2,600; he did not observe the manifold pressure reading. The pilot reported that the airplane seemed to accelerate slowly, which he thought was likely due to the soft runway surface or vegetation. About halfway to two-thirds down the runway, as the tail was coming off the ground, the pilot added a notch of flaps as the airplane continued to roll on its main landing gear. As the airplane approached the end of the runway, the pilot pulled back on the control yoke, which increased the angle of attack. The airplane then climbed about 2 ft above the ground before settling into sagebrush off the end of the runway. The airplane subsequently impacted a tree and came to rest upright about 50 yards from the tree.
The pilot stated that he thought the engine might not have been producing full power and that he should have aborted the takeoff at that time. However, a postaccident examination of the airframe and engine, which included two engine test runs, did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. If the pilot had chosen to abort the takeoff when he noted that he airplane was accelerating slowly, the accident likely would have not occurred.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff from the soft runway surface, which precluded optimal acceleration during the takeoff sequence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA083
- Event ID
- 20160313X42454
- Case number
- WPR16LA083
- 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: 31218a1a8b2ff438d8ab7f341016f98b26fe252a6bb224d0d0c0f895bce89bf2; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:12:59.919Z.