NTSB CAROL · Event
Event GAA16CA018
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's loss of directional control during the landing roll in crosswind conditions, which resulted in a runway excursion and an impact with an airport sign.
Factual narrative
The pilot of a tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that during the landing roll, traveling about 45 to 55 knots, he encountered a crosswind. The airplane veered off the runway to the left into the wind and collided with a taxiway sign. The airplane came to a stop in grass adjacent to the runway. The fuselage sustained substantial damage. The pilot stated there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
METEORLOGICAL INFORMATION
About the time of the accident, a routine aviation weather report at the airport reported the wind at 190 degrees true at 12 knots and the runway heading was 260 degrees magnetic, which resulted in an 11 knot crosswind component. The pilot of a tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that during the landing roll, traveling about 45 to 55 knots, he encountered a crosswind. The airplane veered off the runway to the left into the wind and collided with a taxiway sign. The airplane came to a stop in grass adjacent to the runway. The fuselage sustained substantial damage. The pilot stated there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. About the time of the accident, a routine aviation weather report at the airport reported the wind at 190 degrees true at 12 knots and the runway heading was 260 degrees magnetic, which resulted in an 11 knot crosswind component. 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 Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained - C
- C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
- — Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Crosswind-Effect on operation
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2015_GAA16CA018.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 ↗