CEN17FA028 · Aviat Aircraft Inc A-1C-180 UNDESIGNAT
Aviat Aircraft Inc A-1C-180 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From McCurtain County Regional Airport (4O4) to Clarksville, TX (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17FA028
- 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
- 1 · 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 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N377MA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McCurtain County Regional Airport (4O4), Idabel, OKTo Clarksville, TX (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2008)
- 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 pattern base
- 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
- Destroyed
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 airplane impacted trees and terrain while on approach to land on a privately-owned grass runway. There were no witnesses to the accident. The airplane came to rest about 2,100 ft from the approach end of runway 24 and about 250 ft left of the extended runway centerline. The accident site was located about where the turn from a left base leg to final approach for landing on runway 24 would be made. Examination of the wreckage indicated that the airplane initially struck trees with its left wing and then impacted the ground in a nose-low attitude. The airplane's close proximity to the initial tree impact, and the attitude at which it struck the ground indicated that the airplane had little forward velocity. Examination of the airplane, its control systems, and engine did not reveal any preimpact anomalies. Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the pilot did not maintain adequate airspeed during the turn from the base leg to final approach, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain sufficient airspeed during the landing approach, which resulted in exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17FA028
- Event ID
- 20161029X32021
- Case number
- CEN17FA028
- 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, coordinates. 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: d0bb41c62812a83195bd71218343087cae7c4325597b3c7aeadb04e0e1b5edb6; retrieved 2026-09-14T22:01:48.566Z.