CEN26LA193 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Lake Elmo Airport (21D) to Rice Lake Regional Airport - Carl's Field (RPD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA193
- 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
- N2307V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Elmo Airport (21D), Lake Elmo, MNTo Rice Lake Regional Airport - Carl's Field (RPD), Rice Lake, WI
- Aircraft age
- About 78 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported the tailwheel equipped airplane touched down on the main wheels and on the runway centerline. After touch down, an unusual amount of right rudder was required to keep the airplane straight for the calm wind condition, and as the airplane slowed, more right rudder was needed. When the tailwheel touched down, the airplane continued to veer toward the left until full right rudder had been applied. The pilot attempted to apply right brake to maintain directional control, but the brake did not function properly. The airplane subsequently entered a ground loop, departed the runway pavement, and struck a runway light before coming to rest. The pilot stated that after the accident, he raised the right wheel of the airplane, spun it, and then applied the pilot’s right toe brake. The wheel continued to spin freely until the brake was pumped several times. At that point, the brake functioned properly and the wheel stopped spinning. A postaccident examination conducted by a mechanic revealed damage to the fuselage near the right main landing gear attachment point. Further examination of both the left and right main wheel and brake assemblies was unable to identify any anomalies. The toe brakes functioned normally at that time.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA193
- Event ID
- 20260521203035
- Case number
- CEN26LA193
- 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: 92c7d0a7ccd8eb203583274ecbaa071f9143111725634afc5f03e1dc9bcfa0f5; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:32:07.390Z.