GAA18CA161 · Cessna 172 L
Cessna 172 L · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Ryan Field (RYN) to Ruby Star Airpark (14AZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA161
- 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 L
- 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
- N418DD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZTo Ruby Star Airpark (14AZ), Green Valley, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 46 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 · 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the landing roll he felt as though the airplane was being pushed to the left side of the runway so he applied full right rudder and left aileron. The airplane exited the left side of the runway, and he added power to prevent the airplane's nose from colliding with a drainage culvert, but the airplane accelerated and impacted a tree.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the leading edge of the left wing.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot reported that the wind at the destination airport was from 90° at 10 knots, gusting to 15 knots. The airplane landed on runway 24.
The pilot landed to runway 24 because of the 2.9-percent uphill gradient.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during landing with a tailwind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA161
- Event ID
- 20180312X85545
- Case number
- GAA18CA161
- 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: f2c0b57bfdcae40e6a118cef2f3c096dbebe667c3b5c461905740aab4d97c794; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:37:58.129Z.