GAA17CA297 · CGS HAWK
CGS HAWK · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during takeoff
From Holzer Emergency Medical Facility Heliport (9OH6) to Holzer Emergency Medical Facility Heliport (9OH6)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA297
- 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
CGS HAWK
- Aircraft type
- CGS HAWK
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Holzer Emergency Medical Facility Heliport (9OH6), Findlay, OHTo Holzer Emergency Medical Facility Heliport (9OH6), Findlay, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 33 years (built 1984)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that, during takeoff, the "wind got more gusty than [he] could handle being too low and slow." The airplane aerodynamically stalled and impacted the ground.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
A review of recorded data from the automated weather observation station located about 5 nautical miles west of the accident airport revealed that, about 42 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 200° at 18 knots, gusting to 28 knots. The takeoff direction is unknown.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA297
- Event ID
- 20170518X92153
- Case number
- GAA17CA297
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2017-05-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: db8a311d862986bd4f2fa345935a1d36d3fe3a22859074effd305bfd5bfe54a3; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:17:49.600Z.