GAA18CA022 · Aviat Aircraft Inc A1 B
Aviat Aircraft Inc A1 B · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Reedsville, PA to Williamsport Regional Airport (IPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA022
- 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
Aviat Aircraft Inc A1 B
- Aircraft type
- Aviat A1
- 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
- N337AM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reedsville, PATo Williamsport Regional Airport (IPT), Williamsport, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tundra-tired, tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that, during touchdown, he saw that the left emergency brake was partially engaged. He added that the left wheel was locked and that the airplane exited the left side of the runway. Subsequently, the right landing gear collapsed, and the right wing tip struck the ground.
He added that, before the previous takeoff from a grass airstrip, he had performed his preflight checklist, which was normal. But, "upon reflection," he realized that he had changed his normal routine by shutting down the engine, setting the parking brakes, and exiting the airplane after completing the checklist. After re-entering the airplane, he only did a "visual left to right flow check." He then pressed and released the brakes and applied power holding the left rudder and brake down to turn the airplane in the direction of the departure and then departed after a "very short ground roll downhill."
He further added that, by immediately turning left during the takeoff roll, he "may not have released enough pressure on the parking brake to turn it completely off." He believed that, due to the combination of the large smooth tire, wet grass, and downslope hill, he was unable to determine that the emergency parking brake was engaged.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and right wing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to verify that the parking brake was disengaged before landing, which resulted in a runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA022
- Event ID
- 20171022X22246
- Case number
- GAA18CA022
- 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: af469cace382dcf07e31a09f5c8c5bccf7d32ad51ee9ea47898c5fbf8d1cacf3; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:57:10.456Z.