ERA18LA043 · Cessna 180 UNDESIGNAT
Cessna 180 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Massey Aerodrome (MD1) to Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA043
- 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 180 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N399F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Massey Aerodrome (MD1), Massey, MDTo Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), Frederick, MD
- Aircraft age
- About 62 years (built 1955)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot stated that, after a smooth landing, the left main landing gear tire failed, and the left wingtip struck the runway. A witness reported that the airplane made a "shallow" bounce when it first touched down on the runway. When the airplane touched down again, the left main tire blew. The airplane's left wing then dipped down and dragged on the runway surface for about 20 to 30 ft before the airplane nosed over, which resulted in substantial damage to the firewall and an engine mount.
Examination of the left main tire revealed features consistent with a progressive fracture through the rubber due to the overload failure of the underlying cords. Examination of the tire revealed no evidence of any preexisting damage or material deficiencies. Therefore, based on the witness statement and the left main tire examination, it is likely that the pilot failed to properly flare the airplane, which resulted in a bounced landing and the tire failing.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper landing flare, which resulted in a bounced landing and the failure of the left main landing gear tire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA043
- Event ID
- 20171203X55850
- Case number
- ERA18LA043
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: e107d0c8c93a7158f5a3a58b58e82af38b73bcb8164fdcb8aaeb7935c2ee0593; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:04:10.512Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. MD1 is Massey Aerodrome in Massey, Maryland (Kent County, near 39.36, -75.79); the identifier prefix and the airport's location are Maryland, not Delaware.