ERA18LA115 · Cessna 180K K
Cessna 180K K · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Canton, MS to Canton, MS
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA115
- 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 180K K
- 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
- N77NP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Canton, MSTo Canton, MS
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot stated that he was returning to the airstrip after a 20-minute flight over a river at 2,000 ft mean sea level when the engine began accumulating carburetor ice and began to run roughly. He applied carburetor heat, but the engine continued to run roughly. Since the pilot was near the intended landing point, he attempted to land with about 5 to 7 knots of tailwind. The airplane continued past the departure end of the airstrip and impacted trees before coming to rest in the upright position. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings, vertical stabilizer, rudder, and fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to the formation of carburetor ice at glide and cruise power. It is likely that the engine initially lost partial power after accumulating carburetor ice. The pilot’s application of carburetor heat was ineffective at restoring engine power before the pilot decided to land the airplane with a tailwind.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to land the airplane with a tailwind, which led to a runway excursion. Contributing to the pilot's decision to land with a tailwind was a partial loss of engine power due to his failure to effectively use carburetor heat in conditions conducive to the formation of carburetor ice.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA115
- Event ID
- 20180323X42038
- Case number
- ERA18LA115
- 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: a3ddec97534a3ce1541b030d8d163ce8968c4c6e63f30525abe0dcab9ecfaf81; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:42:22.533Z.