GAA17CA049 · Aviat Aircraft Inc A-1C 180
Aviat Aircraft Inc A-1C 180 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From San Carlos Airport (SQL) to Placerville Airport (PVF)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA049
- 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
Aviat Aircraft Inc A-1C 180
- Aircraft type
- Aviat A-1
- 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
- N331MA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Carlos Airport (SQL), San Carlos, CATo Placerville Airport (PVF), Placerville, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2010)
- 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 · aborted after 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The tailwheel endorsed pilot who was receiving additional instruction from an appropriately rated flight instructor acting as a safety pilot in the tailwheel equipped airplane reported, that during the landing roll before the tail settled to the runway, a gust of wind "pushed" the airplane to the right edge of the runway. He further reported that he attempted to abort the landing to avoid parked aircraft. Subsequently, the airplane impacted an airport perimeter fence during the aborted landing.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings, the right aileron and the rudder.
The pilot reported that there were no pre impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
A review of the local weather on the airfield, about the time of the accident, recorded the wind from 180 degrees true, at 12 nautical miles per hour (knots), with gusts to 20 knots. The pilot landed runway 23.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during landing in gusty crosswind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA049
- Event ID
- 20161027X85502
- Case number
- GAA17CA049
- 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: 856f7e7e2e8f1da53a3e56133f64ce7680e3f1480e3597e3d2cf3876f03aaee3; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:47:09.178Z.