GAA19CA402 · Cessna 180 H
Cessna 180 H · Accident during landing
From Talkeetna Airport (TKA) to Talkeetna Village Strip (AK44)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA402
- 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 180 H
- 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
- N91299
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, AKTo Talkeetna Village Strip (AK44), Talkeetna, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 systems
- 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 of the tailwheel, tundra tire-equipped airplane reported that, before takeoff, while holding short of the runway, he set the parking brake and performed the engine runup. He released the parking brake, taxied onto the runway, and took off for a flight to a nearby airport.
The pilot reported that he performed the Before Landing checklist before conducting a short- and soft-field landing on the damp, grass portion of the grass/gravel runway. He added that, about 2 seconds after touchdown, the tail began to lift. He confirmed that his feet were on the floor without actuating the brakes, and he maintained full back elevator control. As the airplane transitioned onto the gravel portion of the runway, the airplane nosed over.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and empennage.
Postaccident examination revealed that the parking brake was partially engaged. The pilot reported that the parking brake system was not damaged, but the system would not return to the "off" position without "jostling the cable." He added that he believed the parking brake system had become "sticky, requiring lubricant." However, given that there was no issue with the parking brake during takeoff, it is unlikely it resulted in the nose-over upon landing.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper soft-field landing technique, which resulted in a nose-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA402
- Event ID
- 20190711X41957
- Case number
- GAA19CA402
- 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: a928767260fd661ee89421144f84525ea4a39a5b84950da1b0c9acdab1d89378; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:23:57.540Z.