WPR17FA077 · Challenger II
Challenger II · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Oakdale Airport (O27) to Oakdale Airport (O27)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17FA077
- 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
Challenger II
- Aircraft type
- Challenger II
- 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
- N2621T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakdale Airport (O27), Oakdale, CATo Oakdale Airport (O27), Oakdale, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot landed the airplane left of the approach end of the runway on the runway safety area (RSA). Examination of tire tacks indicated that the airplane then veered left, travelled about 70 ft, and subsequently impacted the pilot's truck, which was in front of his hangar. A postimpact fire ensued.
Postaccident examination of the airplane and engine revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Although one of the witnesses stated that the engine did not sound normal, given that the other witness stated that the engine sounded normal during the flight and no anomalies were found with the engine, it was likely producing power during the accident sequence.
Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the pilot failed to attain a proper touchdown point, which resulted in the airplane landing on the RSA. The pilot then failed to maintain directional control for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain a proper touchdown point and his subsequent loss of directional control during landing for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17FA077
- Event ID
- 20170312X72425
- Case number
- WPR17FA077
- 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: 6e84601415a1ff8f334f639e72e0ffbe8f5943f86e394f182cf0d19f140db847; retrieved 2026-09-15T05:59:47.257Z.