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Atlas / NTSB / CEN15CA304

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN15CA304

2015-07-12 South St. Paul, Minnesota, United States Airport · SGS None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The airplane's inability to takeoff for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies. The aborted takeoff resulted in a runway overrun and impact with a fence.

Factual narrative

According to the pilot, he was departing runway 16 on an instrument flight rules flight plan. After traveling down approximately two-thirds of the 4,002 foot runway, he elected to abort the takeoff after he felt the airplane was not able to climb and continue to accelerate. During the aborted takeoff, the airplane departed the runway surface and entered the grass overrun area which was covered with wet dew from the morning environmental conditions. The pilot attempted to stop the airplane; however, the airplane skidded and impacted a fence. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right main wing spar and fuselage. The examination of the airplane revealed no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations. According to the pilot, he was departing runway 16 on an instrument flight rules flight plan. After traveling down approximately two-thirds of the 4,002 foot runway, he elected to abort the takeoff after he felt the airplane was not able to climb and continue to accelerate. During the aborted takeoff, the airplane departed the runway surface and entered the grass overrun area which was covered with wet dew from the morning environmental conditions. The pilot attempted to stop the airplane; however, the airplane skidded and impacted a fence. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right main wing spar and fuselage. The examination of the airplane revealed no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations.  Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Pilot - C
  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Aircraft capability-Braking capability-Attain/maintain not possible - C
  • Environmental issues-Physical environment-Terrain-Wet/muddy-Ability to respond/compensate

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2015_CEN15CA304.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗