Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / GAA16CA249

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event GAA16CA249

2016-05-20 El Cajon, California, United States Airport · SEE None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll in gusty crosswind conditions, which resulted in a runway excursion and nose over.

Factual narrative

The pilot of a tailwheel equipped airplane reported that during landing touchdown, with gusty crosswind conditions, the left wing lifted and the right wing dragged on the runway. Subsequently, the airplane veered off the runway to the right into a ditch and nosed over. The vertical stabilizer and both wings sustained substantial damage. The pilot did not report any mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot of a tailwheel equipped airplane reported that during landing touchdown, with gusty crosswind conditions, the left wing lifted and the right wing dragged on the runway. Subsequently, the airplane veered off the runway to the right into a ditch and nosed over. The vertical stabilizer and both wings sustained substantial damage. The pilot did not report any mechanical malfunctions or failures with 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).

  • 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-Ability to respond/compensate
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Gusts-Ability to respond/compensate

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2016_GAA16CA249.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 ↗