GAA17CA174 · Lancair Company Columbia 400
Lancair Company Columbia 400 · Accident: windshear or thunderstorm during landing
From Moriarty Municipal Airport (0E0) to Henderson Executive Airport (HND)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA174
- 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
Lancair Company Columbia 400
- Aircraft type
- Lancair COLUMBIA 400
- 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
- N2516K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Moriarty Municipal Airport (0E0), Moriaty, NMTo Henderson Executive Airport (HND), Henderson, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2005)
- 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
- 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
- Windshear or thunderstorm
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he and his passenger were cleared by the tower for the approach to runway 17R. During landing, "a violent wind gust without warning hit the airplane." The pilot attempted to recover, "when a second violent wind gust hit the airplane causing a wing to hit the ground." The airplane's left wing impacted the safety area between runway 17R and 17L and just beyond taxiway Foxtrot. The airplane came to rest in the same safety area about 45° left of the initial impact point and about 10 ft from runway 17L. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing, fuselage, and rudder.
The METAR reported that the wind was from 220° at 31 knots, gusting to 38 knots about the time of the accident.
According to the manufacturer's Pilot's Operating Handbook, the maximum demonstrated crosswind component was 23 knots.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to land the airplane with a gusting crosswind, which resulted in a loss of airplane control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA174
- Event ID
- 20170307X14358
- Case number
- GAA17CA174
- 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: 6a9233460c0fcdf1158b98c9cd2750eaf4964f3078d9743ed80b0d53224ac994; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:04:39.559Z.