GAA17CA382 · Cessna 170 B
Sasquatch Air Cessna 170 B · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Alamogordo White Sands Regional Airport (ALM) to Alamogordo White Sands Regional Airport (ALM)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA382
- 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
Cessna 170 B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N2774D
- Operator
- Sasquatch Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alamogordo White Sands Regional Airport (ALM), Alamogordo, NMTo Alamogordo White Sands Regional Airport (ALM), Alamogordo, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 65 years (built 1952)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor in the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that the pilot flying was receiving instruction for a tailwheel endorsement. He added that, during the seventh landing of the day, the pilot extended the downwind to allow for traffic that landed ahead of them. He further added that, during the wheel landing touchdown, as the tail was settling to the ground, a wind gust "turned the airplane's tail," which resulted in a ground loop on the runway.
The left wing, engine mounts, and windscreen sustained substantial damage.
The flight instructor and pilot receiving instruction 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 wind from 240° at 6 knots. The flight instructor reported that the landing was on runway 22.
Probable cause
The pilot receiving instruction’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll and the flight instructor’s delayed remedial action, which resulted in a ground loop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA382
- Event ID
- 20170704X04715
- Case number
- GAA17CA382
- 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: 967a2c07810b69fdc518a8f63a735bd1f2b3bdbea92ccc6a17ceec8673d722db; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:29:36.510Z.