GAA17CA384 · Cessna P210 R
Cessna P210 R · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Palo Alto Airport (PAO) to Ells Field Willits Municipal Airport (O28)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA384
- 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 P210 R
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N66NF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CATo Ells Field Willits Municipal Airport (O28), Willits, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 32 years (built 1985)
- 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
- 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 in flight
- 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 pilot of the airplane reported that, while landing and trying to maintain the runway centerline, the airplane was "blown to the east, presumably by either stronger winds or gusts." He added that he continued to descend while attempting to correct back to the right toward the runway centerline. He further added that he was "fearing a stall" and chose to "put the plane down in the grass and dirt to the left of the runway." Unable to stop the forward momentum with full application of the brakes, the airplane continued over the edge of the embankment and came to rest in the trees.
A witness, who was flying another airplane in the pattern, reported that the accident airplane did not touch down until the second half of the landing runway. He added that the airplane was "over the dirt" on the east side of the runway when it touched down and went off the embankment at the end of the runway. He observed the pilot exit the airplane and walk away.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The automated weather observation system about 21 nautical miles from the accident site reported that, about the time of the accident, the wind was from 150° at 12 knots, gusting to 20 knots. The pilot landed on runway 16.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control while landing in gusting wind conditions. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to go around after the unstabilized approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA384
- Event ID
- 20170705X03729
- Case number
- GAA17CA384
- 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: 0e62867ac83cea960617ed8ab4df0db7fb7364dc9a04cca847907794bb23ba2d; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:30:05.550Z.