GAA17CA459 · Rockwell International S 2R UNDESIGNAT
Rockwell International S 2R UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Cochran Airport (48A) to Telfair Wheeler Airport (MQW)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA459
- 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
Rockwell International S 2R UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell S-2
- 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
- N4886X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cochran Airport (48A), Cochran, GATo Telfair Wheeler Airport (MQW), McRae, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1974)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 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 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 an agricultural application flight and after he had completed two spray passes, he received a call from his ground crew, which informed him that he did not have enough chemicals to complete the application. Because of his heavy load, the position of his load pad, and the runway slope, the pilot chose to land with a tailwind.
The pilot reported that he approached with a higher-than-normal airspeed and touched down about 1,500 ft from the approach end of runway 21. As the tailwheel came down, the airplane rolled over a depression in the runway, which unloaded the weight on the landing gear, and the airplane veered to the left. The pilot was unable to regain directional control before the airplane departed the runway and went over an embankment.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The automated weather observation station located about 14 nautical miles northwest of the accident site reported that, about 5 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 50° at 6 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll in tailwind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA459
- Event ID
- 20170727X45300
- Case number
- GAA17CA459
- 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, coordinates. 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: 3dfc4ce01327d71d102cde2bf4a777983de3f835278715862498e83311b2dc05; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:36:56.997Z.