CEN20CA289 · Cessna 305 A
Cessna 305 A · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE) to Sumers Airpark (GWS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20CA289
- 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 305 A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 305
- 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
- N86WM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, COTo Sumers Airpark (GWS), Glenwood Springs, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 53 years (built 1967)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported he was on a cross-country flight with a passenger. On approach, he followed an airplane established on a left downwind for the runway. The pilot extended the airplane's downwind to allow space for the landing airplane to clear the runway. The pilot elected to use the paved runway instead of the 800-ft grass landing area adjacent to the paved runway because of the clearing airplane. He subsequently lost directional control during the landing and the airplane exited the paved surface. A "juggle" of the pilot's feet on the rudder pedals occurred during the excursion, which resulted in "over braking" and the airplane subsequently nosed over. The airplane sustained substantial fuselage and empennage damage. The pilot indicated that there were no mechanical malfunctions during the flight and his safety recommendation was, "Never underestimate a tailwheel airplane!"
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during landing resulting in a nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20CA289
- Event ID
- 20200717X43430
- Case number
- CEN20CA289
- 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: 66d9220bfd62d2390e8ca4692a96c779ab98336bff588cd1a83bac6dd70740ee; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:10:57.305Z.