GAA16CA265 · Piper PA 18-150 A150
Tri-W Piper PA 18-150 A150 · Accident: abrupt maneuver during landing
From Laurel Municipal Airport (6S8) to Laurel Municipal Airport (6S8)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA265
- 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
Piper PA 18-150 A150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N41553
- Operator
- Tri-W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laurel Municipal Airport (6S8), Laurel, MTTo Laurel Municipal Airport (6S8), Laurel, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1993)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during the landing touchdown, a gust of wind lifted the airplane's right wing and forced the airplane to the left side of runway 32. The pilot reported that he overcompensated with right rudder and the airplane exited the right side of the runway. The left main landing gear collapsed and the airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical anomalies or malfunctions with any portion of the airplane that would have prevented normal flight operations.
The meteorological aerodrome report at the nearest weather reporting facility at the time of the accident was about 11 miles northeast reported: 310353Z 07005KTS 10SM FEW075 FEW150 SCT200 11/02 A3013 RMK AO2
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of directional control during the landing touchdown, resulting in a runway excursion and substantial damage to the both wings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA265
- Event ID
- 20160531X02231
- Case number
- GAA16CA265
- 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: 3dbea2874f6179fbffa3dc9d2fa2f92ce83c0e1ae67c6504dd4deb7f1bd31179; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:26:26.074Z.