GAA17CA275 · Piper PA18 135
Piper PA18 135 · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From Seward Airport (SWD) to Seward Airport (SWD)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA275
- 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
Piper PA18 135
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA18
- 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
- N1258C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seward Airport (SWD), Seward, AKTo Seward Airport (SWD), Seward, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 64 years (built 1953)
- 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that he was providing tailwheel instruction for the pilot, who was in the front seat of the tandem-seat airplane and did not possess a tailwheel endorsement. Following multiple landings earlier in the flight, the pilot was practicing a high-speed taxi in tailwind conditions. Upon reaching about 20 mph ground speed, "directional control began to be lost." Subsequently, the flight instructor applied brakes, and the airplane nosed over.
The vertical stabilizer and left-wing lift strut sustained substantial damage.
The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
An automated weather observation station at the accident airport recorded that, about the time of the accident, the wind was from 170° at 9 knots. The flight instructor reported they were taxiing north on runway 31.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's incorrect brake application during a high-speed taxi with a tailwind, which resulted in a nose-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA275
- Event ID
- 20170511X93532
- Case number
- GAA17CA275
- 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: 4e08b30895d2d4af3f7e12ca68b3ef3e5b0e5c0c042d74c5c5a78501d2b7eec3; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:16:36.702Z.