CEN24LA300 · Aviat Aircraft Inc A-1C-180
Aviat Aircraft Inc A-1C-180 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Tri State Steuben County Airport (ANQ) to Lake Wawasee Seaplane Base (K01D)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA300
- 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
- 0
- 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
Aviat Aircraft Inc A-1C-180
- Aircraft type
- Aviat A-1
- 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
- N177DB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Tri State Steuben County Airport (ANQ), Angola, INTo Lake Wawasee Seaplane Base (K01D), Syracuse, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2008)
- 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 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing a takeoff in an amphibious, float-equipped airplane. During the takeoff the pilot lost control, the airplane pitched forward, the floats dug into the water, and the airplane became airborne. The airplane rolled to the left, the left wing tip struck the water and subsequently nosed over. During the accident sequence the right wing, right aileron, and left wing strut were substantially damaged. When asked by the responding officer what he thought the cause of the accident was, he stated that it was a result of being a little high and slow on his approach, and the airplane hit the water hard, causing damage to the plane. The pilot later reported that there was a mechanical failure of the left float which was the result of a hard landing on asphalt five weeks before the accident. The pilot did not have any documentation of damage from the hard landing. He later stated that the takeoff did not feel right and that the entire flight he had to correct for the left wing dropping. The pilot stated to the responding officer that he did not examine all the components of the airplane before taking off. After reviewing video footage of the accident, it is unlikely that there were any preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operations.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA300
- Event ID
- 20240805194843
- Case number
- CEN24LA300
- 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: 4aa28dbdda3b823429dd1ec0155835b5c0e4389eb0ff2b8242db4e572275d23f; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:07:50.318Z.