GAA19CA281 · Cessna 340 Undesignat
Cessna 340 Undesignat · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Caldwell Executive Airport (EUL) to Carvers, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA281
- 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 340 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 340
- 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
- N5418M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Caldwell Executive Airport (EUL), Caldwell, IDTo Carvers, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1971)
- 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
- 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 in flight
- 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 › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the multiengine airplane reported that, while using a short-field takeoff technique on a private, dirt airstrip, the airplane encountered soft patches of dirt. He rotated the airplane to initiate a climb, but the airplane could not climb higher than ground effect, and the stall horn sounded. He lowered the nose to gain airspeed, but the landing gear impacted a gravel berm, which sheared off the landing gear. The airplane then skidded 150 ft and came to rest in a dirt field past the end of the runway.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and right horizontal stabilizer.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot also reported that, before takeoff, he determined that there was about 5,000 ft of usable runway; however, the runway was actually about 3,500 ft long. He added that he believed the airport elevation was about 5,000 ft mean sea level, and the density altitude was about 8,000 ft. Given this information, it is likely that the pilot's failure to accurately assess the available runway resulted in impact with a gravel berm during the attempted takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to accurately assess the available runway for the takeoff, which resulted in impact with a gravel berm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA281
- Event ID
- 20190505X61703
- Case number
- GAA19CA281
- 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: a026082325dfa6df3bd4d828f286f5763db282adf52cf9bee9b40b943ed3f59b; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:55:25.400Z.