NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ERA20CA294
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
A runway excursion following an aborted takeoff in tailwind conditions.
Factual narrative
Prior to departing on the local flight, the pilot noted that the wind was calm and favoring one runway. He then back-taxied the airplane along the 2,205-ft-long runway for the departure. After initiating the takeoff roll, and nearing the mid-field point, the pilot noted that the windsock there had changed direction and that a tailwind was now present. The pilot then realized the airplane had not gained enough airspeed and aborted the takeoff. As the airplane approached the end of the runway, the pilot turned the airplane right to avoid a road, and it continued off the runway and eventually struck trees. The airplane’s right wing was substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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).
- — Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Tailwind-Effect on operation
- — Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Tree(s)-Contributed to outcome
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2020_ERA20CA294.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
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.
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article
Runway Excursion — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary runway excursion review — RE-OE (overruns) + RE-LO (lateral). Risk drivers: long landing, high approach speed, contaminated surface, tailwind, mis-set autobrakes.
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2019 · Accident report
Embraer ERJ 175 Runway Excursion at Charlotte Douglas
Republic Airline ERJ-175 runway excursion CLT, January 2018. Examines a low-energy runway excursion involving misuse of autobrakes + thrust reverser response after a high-crosswind landing on a contam…
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Presentation
Uncovering Resilient Behavior in the Aviation Safety Reporting System Using Large Language Models
Resiliency is present in everyday life, both in system design and exhibited by the operators that function within these systems.
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
Uncovering Resilient Behavior in the Aviation Safety Reporting System Using Large Language Models
Resiliency is present in everyday life, both in system design and exhibited by the operators that function within these systems.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World
Runway Safety Initiative Final Report (RSI)
Foundation Runway Safety Initiative final report — comprehensive analysis of runway excursion + incursion risk drivers worldwide.
- Semantic Scholar 2020 · Article
Towards online prediction of safety-critical landing metrics in aviation using supervised machine learning
Abstract In recent years, due to the increased availability of data and improvements in computing power, application of machine learning techniques to various aviation safety problems for identifying,…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗