NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ERA23LA374
Registry · N5269G
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
CESSNA 305A
Year of manufacture
1951 · 72 years old at event
Engine
CONT MOTOR O-470 SERIES (230 hp)
Seats / Engines
2 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date
19720314
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S A6A2D2
Registrant of record
BRACHTENBACH ERIC
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control while landing in a gusting crosswind, which resulted in a noseover. Contributing was the pilot’s lack of familiarity with the airplane.
Factual narrative
The multi-segment cross-country flight was the pilot’s first time flying the tailwheel-equipped airplane. Arriving at the destination airport, the pilot noted quartering gusts when he cleared a tree line to land on the asphalt runway. Following touchdown, the airplane pulled to the right and he applied left brake to correct; however, the airplane nosed over. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings, empennage, and fuselage. Postaccident examination of the brakes revealed no evidence of any preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The recorded wind at the nearest weather reporting facility, about 13 miles southwest of the accident airport, was a quartering right crosswind at 12 knots, gusting to 19 knots at the time of the accident. 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).
- — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
- — Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Gusts-Effect on operation
- — Personnel issues-Experience/knowledge-Knowledge-Knowledge of equipment-Pilot
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2023_ERA23LA374.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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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.
- arXiv 2022 · arXiv preprint
Finite volume based film flow and ice accretion models on aircraft wings
The thin runback water films driven by the gas flow, the pressure gradient and the gravity on the iced aircraft surface are investigated in this paper.
- arXiv 2021 · arXiv preprint
Data-driven turbulence modeling in separated flows considering physical mechanism analysis
Accurate simulation of turbulent flow with separation is an important but challenging problem. In this paper, a data-driven Reynolds-averaged turbulence modeling approach, field inversion and machine …
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