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ERA10CA244

2010-04-24 · Poughkeepsie, New York, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport POU

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's failure to maintain directional control on the landing rollout.

Factual narrative

The private pilot was conducting touch and go landings and full stop landings at his home base airport. The airplane touched down on the runway and started to veer to the left on landing roll out. No crosswind condition was present. The pilot stated, "I let the plane follow the path to the left, not wanting to over control it and having it tilt sideways or nose first into the grass. It struck the 3,000 foot sign on the side of the runway as it exited the runway, rolled out on the grass and came to a stop." The pilot informed the NTSB investigator during a telephone interview that he lost directional control of the airplane. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration Inspector and maintenance inspector from a local fixed base operator revealed the left horizontal stabilizer received structural damage. No anomalies were noted with the brakes or steering systems of the airplane. The private pilot was conducting touch-and-go landings and full-stop landings at his home airport. The airplane touched down on the runway and started to veer left on the landing rollout. No crosswinds were present. The pilot stated, "I let the plane follow the path to the left, not wanting to over control it and having it tilt sideways or nose first into the grass. It struck the 3,000 foot sign on the side of the runway as it exited the runway, rolled out on the grass and came to a stop." The pilot indicated that he lost directional control of the airplane. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the left horizontal stabilizer received structural damage; no anomalies were noted with the brakes or steering systems of the airplane. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

  • C Personnel issues-Action/decision-Action-Lack of action-Pilot - C
  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained - C
  • — Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Sign/marker-Contributed to outcome

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2010_ERA10CA244.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (maintenance). All research papers