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Atlas / NTSB / CEN25LA258

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN25LA258

2025-07-17 Blaine, Minnesota, United States Airport · ANE None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N237FC

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

ZENITH STOL CH 701

Year of manufacture

2023 · 2 years old at event

Engine

AMA/EXPR UNKNOWN ENG

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20230701

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A22301

Registrant of record

237TH AERO SQUADRON

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control while landing with a crosswind.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported the accident occurred while landing following the Phase 1 test flight. During the landing roll, with the nosewheel still off the runway, the airplane suddenly pitched down and veered left. The pilot attempted to regain directional control with a right rudder pedal input, but the airplane continued to veer left and departed off the side of the runway into the grass where the nose landing gear collapsed and the right wing struck the ground. The fuselage and right wing sustained substantial damage during the runway excursion. The pilot stated that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. At the time of the accident, the pilot was landing the airplane on runway 27 with wind from 320° at 4 knots. 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).

  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Crosswind-Effect on operation

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_CEN25LA258.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 or causal vocabulary (runway excursion). 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 ↗