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Atlas / NTSB / GAA17CA380

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event GAA17CA380

2017-07-02 Tucson, Arizona, United States Airport · RYN None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain pitch and yaw control during the landing roll in crosswind conditions.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that, during the landing roll, the airplane pitched up and yawed to the right because of a "dust devil". He added that he applied full power, but was unable to maintain level flight, and the right wing then the left wing struck the runway. The airplane touched down, collapsing the nose landing gear, and the airplane slid about 60 to 70 ft. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. A review of recorded data from the automated weather observation station, located on the airport, reported that about 40 minutes before the accident the wind was from 300° at 9 knots, gusting 16 knots. The same automated weather observation station reported that about 15 minutes after the accident the wind was from 220° at 9 knots. The airplane landed on runway 24R. The pilot reported that, during the landing roll, the airplane pitched up and yawed to the right because of a "dust devil." He added that he applied full power but was unable to maintain level flight and that the right wing then the left wing struck the runway. The airplane touched down, the nose landing gear collapsed, and the airplane slid about 60 to 70 ft. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. A review of recorded data from the automated weather observation station located on the airport reported that, about 40 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 300° at 9 knots, gusting to 16 knots. The same automated weather observation station reported that, about 15 minutes after the accident, the wind was from 220° at 9 knots. The airplane landed on runway 24R. 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-Pitch control-Not attained/maintained - C
  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Yaw control-Not attained/maintained - C
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Crosswind-Effect on operation

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2017_GAA17CA380.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. 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 ↗