GAA17CA460 · Cessna 305 A
Cessna 305 A · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From River Field (TS27) to Eagle Lake Airport (ELA)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA460
- 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 305 A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 305
- 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
- N72BD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From River Field (TS27), Columbus, TXTo Eagle Lake Airport (ELA), Eagle Lake, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1972)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane was in the rear seat during the personal flight, and the airplane owner was in the front seat. The pilot made an approach to runway 17. He reported that, just before the landing gear touched down, the airplane encountered a wind gust from the right. The airplane's nose turned to the right, and the airplane touched down on the runway. During the landing roll, the airplane exited the right side of the runway. The airplane owner then took control of the airplane, which subsequently struck a runway light and then ground looped to the left.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the horizontal stabilizer and the upper left side of the fuselage just aft of the cabin.
The pilot reported that the wind was from 210° at 8 knots.
The nearest METAR located 25 miles northeast of the airport reported that, about the time of the accident, the wind was from 260° at 6 knots and variable between 230° and 290°. The skies were clear with 9 statute miles of visibility.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Per the National Transportation Safety Board Pilot Aircraft Accident Report, the pilot noted that the accident could have been prevented if he had carried more airspeed during the landing to combat the wind conditions.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of directional control during landing in variable wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA460
- Event ID
- 20170802X82859
- Case number
- GAA17CA460
- 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: 60a92032d0a647492fde0932ba19f3d7cb4ded72f290294ecd189f44786bcd60; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:39:18.419Z.