CEN21LA448 · Cessna 305A
Cessna 305A · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Sherman Army Air Field (FLV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA448
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 305A
- 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
- N140R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sherman Army Air Field (FLV), Fort Leavenworth, KSTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 70 years (built 1951)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that he conducted several takeoff and landings before the accident that day, at a different airport, all without incident. During the accident landing, the airplane touched down, veered left, and the pilot attempted to correct with right rudder. Subsequently, the airplane exited the runway, the tail veered to the left, and the airplane “rocked” left. The left wing and left elevator impacted the ground resulting in substantial damage. The airplane came to rest upright on the main landing gear and the pilot was able to taxi the airplane to parking without further incident. A witness reported seeing the tailwheel rotating after takeoff. An examination revealed that the tailwheel locking mechanism did not function.
Probable cause
The loss of control and ground loop due to the mechanical malfunction of the tailwheel lock.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA448
- Event ID
- 20210923103952
- Case number
- CEN21LA448
- 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, cause areas. 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: d83bc1b2dd1a24841f09bcb197ba4f5744822fd4fde130823458e4acbdb36464; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:34:25.731Z.