CEN16LA348 · Piper PA 18-180
Big Q Aviation Piper PA 18-180 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From USAF Academy Airfield (AFF) to USAF Academy Airfield (AFF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA348
- 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 18-180
- 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
- N66898
- Operator
- Big Q Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From USAF Academy Airfield (AFF), Colorado Springs, COTo USAF Academy Airfield (AFF), Colorado Springs, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1975)
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had completed a local glider tow operation and was landing at an airfield at the base of the mountains. He indicated that, after touchdown and the landing roll, a "large gust of wind" came from the right side of the airplane and lifted the right wing. The pilot stated that, to regain directional control, he applied rudder, lowered the tailwheel, and applied pressure to both wheel brakes. He indicated that the left brake grabbed "more efficiently" than the right brake, which caused the airplane to exit the runway and ground loop. The right wing contacted the ground. A postaccident examination of the tailwheel revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Although the weather information for the airfield shortly before the accident did not note wind gusts, given the pilot's statement and the surrounding mountainous terrain, it is likely that the pilot lost directional control after encountering a wind gust during the landing roll.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control after encountering a wind gust during the landing roll, which resulted in a ground loop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA348
- Event ID
- 20160906X15846
- Case number
- CEN16LA348
- 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: bc3b3faba18901da1826a5aa98ffc0b3581958b2300573b9fd011f62da3e2a00; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:13:20.687Z.