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SEA00LA055

2000-03-22 · ROUNDUP, Montana, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport RPX

N75CD has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (ZENITH CH750), which was not involved in this event.

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's failure to adequately compensate for wind conditions and subsequent loss of control.

Factual narrative

On March 22, 2000, about 1650 mountain standard time, a Cessna 180K, N75CD, registered to the pilot as a 14CFR91 personal/pleasure flight, was substantially damaged during the landing roll at Roundup Municipal Airport, Roundup, Montana. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the local flight. The private pilot, the sole occupant, was uninjured. The flight originated from Roundup approximately 20 minutes prior to the accident. There was no fire and no report of an ELT actuating. The pilot stated he was landing on runway 24 with a crosswind from the southeast. After the aircraft touched down, in a wing-low attitude, it began to track to the left of the runway centerline. The pilot was unable to correct the situation and subsequently ground-looped the aircraft. The aircraft came to rest south of runway 24, and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, landing gear, right wing and propeller. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the aircraft at the time of the accident. The private pilot was landing the tailwheel-equipped airplane on a dry, paved runway. During the landing roll-out, the aircraft began to weathervane and drift left of centerline. The pilot stated he tried to compensate using brake and rudder, but the aircraft continued off the runway and ground-looped. Winds at the time of the accident, as reported by the pilot, were from south at 10-20 knots. No malfunctions or failures were reported with the aircraft's directional control system. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2000_SEA00LA055.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control). All research papers