GAA18CA141 · Cessna 172 M
Canyon State Aero Cessna 172 M · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Falcon Field (FFZ) to Show Low Regional Airport (SOW)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA141
- 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 172 M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N5147N
- Operator
- Canyon State Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZTo Show Low Regional Airport (SOW), Show Low, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1973)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 flight instructor reported that, during approach in a gusting crosswind, he took the flight controls from the student pilot about 500 to 700 ft above ground level. He added that, during the landing roll while decelerating, a wind gust lifted the back of the airplane "from the rear right to the front left, forcing the front wheel onto the ground and lifting the plane onto the left main" landing gear. He applied full left rudder and right aileron to correct, but when it did not improve the situation, he "relaxed the controls slightly back towards neutral." Subsequently, the airplane exited the runway to the right and came to rest inverted.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage and empennage.
The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The automated weather observation station located on the airport reported that, at the time of the accident, the wind was from 210° at 26 knots, gusting to 32 knots. The airplane landed on runway 06.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll in gusting crosswind and tailwind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA141
- Event ID
- 20180226X33831
- Case number
- GAA18CA141
- 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: 157376936982cad762f66428897a88bcf4a72fe266d04896f99d6067588c59f2; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:31:38.544Z.