FTW04CA181
2004-07-08 · Weiner, Arkansas, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Current FAA registration · N8676X
- Make / Model
- CESSNA 180E
- Year of manufacture
- 1961 · 43 years old at event
- Engine
- CONT MOTOR O-470 SERIES (230 hp)
- Seats / Engines
- 4 seats · 1 engine
- Last airworthiness date
- 19611214
- ADS-B equipped
- Yes — Mode-S ABEC18
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's poor preflight preparation/planning which resulted in the pilot landing at a wrong airport. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the off airport landing.
Factual narrative
On July 8, 2004, approximately 0900 central daylight time, a Cessna 180 single-engine airplane, N8676X, sustained substantial damage when it impacted terrain following a loss of control during landing to a field near Weiner, Arkansas. The private pilot, who was the sole occupant, was not injured. The airplane was registered to G and W Aircraft Inc., Weiner, Arkansas, and operated by the pilot. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and a flight plan was not filed for the Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The local flight departed Sally Wofford Airport (8M2) at an unknown time and was destined for a local agricultural airstrip. According to the Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report (NTSB Form 6120.1/2), the pilot departed 8M2 and destined for the "Hall ag strip, which [the pilot] had never landed on." The pilot stated he misidentified the airport and landed in a rice field. According to the Federal Aviation Administration inspector, the pilot stated he lost control of the airplane during landing. The airplane flipped over and came to rest in the inverted position. The pilot added there was no mechanical problems with the airplane. The inspector stated both wings and the vertical stabilizer were bent. On a local flight, the pilot misidentified the intended airstrip, and landed in a rice field. The pilot stated he never had previously landed at the intended airstrip. During the landing, the pilot lost control of the airplane, the airplane flipped over and came to rest inverted. The pilot stated there was no mechanical problems with the airplane. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2004_FTW04CA181.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Search this event elsewhere
External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.
- TallyAero Live Wire Aviation press
- NTSB CAROL Agency ↗
- NTSB Docket Agency ↗
- Aviation Safety Network Aviation press ↗
- Kathryn's Report Aviation press ↗
- Aviation Herald Aviation press ↗
- AVweb Aviation press ↗
- Pilots of America Community ↗
- Reddit /r/flying Community ↗
- FlightAware Aviation press ↗
- AOPA accident database Aviation press ↗
- Google News News ↗
- DuckDuckGo News ↗
Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control). All research papers
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER) A Scoping Review of Aviation Loss of Control Inflight Research
Loss of control – inflight (LOC-I) contributes to aircraft accidents at unacceptably high rates. Significant industry efforts and research have aimed to improve LOC-I prevention, detection, and recove…
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article Loss of Control In-Flight (LOC-I) — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary comprehensive knowledge-base entry on Loss of Control In-Flight — definitions, contributing factors, accident case studies (Air France 447, Colgan 3407), and prevention strategies.
- Semantic Scholar 2024 · Article (International Conference on Networking and Services) Risk Assessment of Loss of Control In-Flight Trajectories for Urban Air Mobility Safety
In Urban Air Mobility (UAM), maintaining a minimum separation between aircraft is a safety requirement, which becomes challenging amidst congested air traffic and off-nominal conditions, such as Loss …
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2022 · Accident report Loss of Control on Takeoff in Icing Conditions — Citation 560XL
Cessna Citation 560XL fatal takeoff icing accident, March 2018. Investigation of a Citation 560XL loss-of-control takeoff accident in icing conditions.
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aviation) ANALYSIS OF GENERAL AVIATION FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS INVOLVING INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL USING A STATE-BASED APPROACH
Inflight loss of control (LOC-I) is a significant cause of General Aviation (GA) fixed-wing aircraft accidents. The United States National Transportation Safety Board’s database provides a rich source…
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Presentation Use of Design of Experiments in Determining Neural Network Architectures for Loss of Control Detection
Abstract—We describe empirical methods for selecting a neural network architecture to implement belief state inference on generic commercial transport aircraft.