ERA17CA149 · North American T 6G G
North American T 6G G · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Culpeper Regional Airport (CJR) to Culpeper Regional Airport (CJR)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17CA149
- 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
North American T 6G G
- Aircraft type
- North American T-6
- 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
- N3167G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Culpeper Regional Airport (CJR), Culpeper, VATo Culpeper Regional Airport (CJR), Culpeper, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 68 years (built 1949)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that, after a thorough preflight inspection and passenger briefing, he started the engine and noted that there was an 80° left crosswind at 5 knots, gusting to 15 knots. He performed an engine run-up, checked the flight controls, and then departed to fly around the local area for about 20 minutes. He then returned to the departure airport, and because the airplane was only equipped with a single radio and there was traffic congestion, he did not monitor the weather or ask for a wind check. He performed a "high break" at traffic pattern altitude, and while on final approach with the flaps fully extended, he maintained a left-wing-low attitude to correct for the left crosswind. He performed a wheel landing, but as the tailwheel was lowering, the left wing raised "dramatically," and the right wingtip contacted the runway. He added power to abort the landing, but because the right wing was contacting the runway, the airplane pivoted to the right. The airplane went off the right side of the runway and nosed over.
The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions of the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. The reported wind conditions about 5 minutes before the accident included a variable crosswind between 80° and 170° left of the selected runway heading at 8 knots, gusting to 16 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane and directional control during the landing roll and subsequent go-around in gusting wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17CA149
- Event ID
- 20170408X45617
- Case number
- ERA17CA149
- 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: cc1165f53cf1fb57a253e0ca424326e4bfc1567eb64311af2142e2fd06dc5760; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:08:46.585Z.