GAA18CA429 · Cessna 170 B
Cessna 170 B · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Black Hills Airport-Clyde Ice Field (SPF) to Mondell Field (ECS)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA429
- 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 170 B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N432W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Black Hills Airport-Clyde Ice Field (SPF), Spearfish, SDTo Mondell Field (ECS), Newcastle, WY
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1952)
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during takeoff on a grass runway, after liftoff, he noticed the airplane was not able to climb at a normal rate. He lowered the airplane's nose, but the airspeed remained "dangerously low," and the stall horn sounded intermittently. He reduced power to abort the takeoff, but there was insufficient runway remaining. The airplane touched down and overran the runway, the left wing impacted a tree, and the airplane spun 180° before coming to rest.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
The automated weather observation station located on the airport reported that, about 5 minutes after the accident, the wind was from 140° at 5 knots. The airplane was departing from runway 26.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to take off in tailwind conditions, which resulted in an aborted takeoff with insufficient runway remaining.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA429
- Event ID
- 20180719X61107
- Case number
- GAA18CA429
- 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: 5e6a4ee274077812d0334a137001f942e0899e6cbaebee79208e53f41d17fe37; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:54:46.508Z.