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Atlas / NTSB / GAA15CA120

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event GAA15CA120

2015-06-11 Everett, Washington, United States Airport · PAE None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's failure to maintain directional control, which resulted in a runway excursion, and a collision with a sign.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that during the landing roll, as the tailwheel lowered, the airplane began to veer to the left. He applied full right rudder, and right brake, with no effect. The pilot stated that he increased the throttle on the left engine, but by that time, the aircraft had veered partially off the runway to the left and struck an airport sign. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage. The pilot reported there were no pre-impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation The pilot reported that during the landing roll, as the tailwheel lowered, the airplane began to veer to the left.  He applied full right rudder, and right brake, with no effect.  The pilot stated that he increased the throttle on the left engine, but by that time, the aircraft had veered partially off the runway to the left and struck an airport sign. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage. The pilot reported there were no pre-impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine 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).

  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-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_2015_GAA15CA120.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

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.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗