GAA17CA141 · Cessna 170 A
Cessna 170 A · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Camp Guernsey Airport (GUR) to Phifer Airfield (KEAN)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA141
- 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 170 A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N1421D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Camp Guernsey Airport (GUR), Guernsey, WYTo Phifer Airfield (KEAN), Wheatland, WY
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1951)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor in the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that, during the landing roll, as soon as the tailwheel touched the runway, the airplane veered to the right. He added that he attempted to recover by applying full left rudder, left brake, and right aileron, but the left wing impacted the ground as the airplane exited the runway to the right. Subsequently, the airplane nosed over.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing lift strut, both wings, and empennage.
The flight instructor reported that skid marks on the runway indicated that the tailwheel was not rolling freely. He added that, during a postaccident inspection, the left brake pedal went to the lower limit on an initial depression, but later held brake pressure during a second depression. He reported that he would not have been able to recover the airplane back to centerline because of the initial brake pressure response.
Further, the flight instructor reported that, about 10 minutes before the accident, the wind was 310° at 13 knots, gusting to 19 knots.
In a followup e-mail, the flight instructor reported that there were no brake or tailwheel anomalies noted during the run-up or departure. He also reported that the student pilot did not make any noticeable control inputs during the landing sequence.
The Federal Aviation Administration inspector reported that, during a postaccident examination of the airplane 2 days after the accident, he "saw nothing abnormal with the brakes," and he added that the tailwheel was turning.
The airplane landed on runway 26. An online commercial weather service provider reported that a nearby station, about 2 minutes before the accident, reported wind 010° at 21 mph, gusting to 24 mph.
The passenger in the rear seat provided a video showing the landing roll from the rear seat looking forward. Both the right and left control yokes can be seen, but the rudder pedals cannot be seen. During the beginning of the sequence, the instructor, in the right seat, had his right hand on the control yoke, and the student, in the left seat, had his left hand on the control yoke. Right aileron was applied. During the landing roll, the student added his right hand to the control yoke, and as the airplane veered to the right, left aileron was applied. The camera panned to the left as the right wing lifted and the left wing impacted the ground. The airplane veered left, then nosed over.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s incorrect compensation for the gusting crosswind during the landing roll, which resulted in a loss of directional control and runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA141
- Event ID
- 20170221X10747
- Case number
- GAA17CA141
- 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: 25ccb5feedf0a87a0973d4556febbdd74b5039d6ba929caa6471910bcaf9750a; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:01:06.707Z.