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ERA19LA031

2018-10-28 · Elba, Alabama, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport 14J

N20BK has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (CIRRUS DESIGN SR20), which was not involved in this event.

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

A leak in the pitot-static system for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information, which resulted in an airspeed indication error, an aborted takeoff, and a subsequent runway overrun.

Factual narrative

On October 28, 2018, about 1500 central daylight time, a Cessna 182Q, N20BK, sustained substantial damage when it was involved in an accident near Elba, Alabama. The flight instructor, the commercial pilot receiving instruction, and a passenger were not injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. According to the flight instructor, all three occupants boarded the airplane for departure after a preflight inspection. An engine run-up revealed no anomalies. When the airplane neared the midpoint of the 3,050-ft-long runway, he noticed that the airspeed was 50 knots and was not increasing. He immediately reduced engine power to idle, aborted the takeoff, and applied the brakes. The airplane overran the runway and collided with a berm about 1,000 ft past the runway end. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector revealed that the nose landing gear broke away from the strut and that the engine firewall was buckled. The airplane’s maintenance logs were not made available for review. A postaccident test of the pitot static system revealed a leak within the system; the airspeed indicator read 40 knots when tested at 70 knots, and 60 knots when tested at 100 knots. During the takeoff roll on an instructional flight, the instructor noticed that the airspeed was not increasing above 50 knots. He aborted the takeoff, during which the airplane overran the runway end and collided with a berm, resulting in substantial damage. The airplane was recovered for examination and a pitot-static system test revealed significant errors in airspeed indication due to a leak in the system. The airplane’s maintenance logs were not provided for review, and the maintenance history of the pitot-static system could not be determined. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

  • C Aircraft-Aircraft systems-(general)-(general)-Malfunction
  • — Environmental issues-Physical environment-Terrain-(general)-Contributed to outcome

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2018_ERA19LA031.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

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Related research

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