ERA23LA139 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Indiantown Airport (X58) to Keystone Heights Airport (42J)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23LA139
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N2419V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indiantown Airport (X58), Indiantown, FLTo Keystone Heights Airport (42J), Keystone Heights, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 75 years (built 1948)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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 reported that he was about three miles south of the non-tower-controlled airport, inbound for landing, when he heard another pilot announce they were on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern for the same runway. He elected to perform a 360° right turn to “allow the other aircraft time to clear the pattern.” He further reported that while in the turn, he “noticed acres and acres of pristine/plush land.” The pilot then decided to perform an off-airport landing in a field. During the landing roll, livestock began to walk in front of the airplane and the pilot took action to avoid a collision. This resulted in a nose over and substantial damage to the vertical stabilizer, rudder, wings, and fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to perform an impromptu off-airport landing and his failure to maintain control of the airplane during the landing, which resulted in a nose-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23LA139
- Event ID
- 20230306106824
- Case number
- ERA23LA139
- 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, 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: 964d755a02ad90dc872bff11e5200002b8ba2b251e1a83333f0adb2b9334a55d; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:23:16.829Z.