SEA06CA070
2006-03-31 · Driggs, Idaho, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport DIJ
Current FAA registration · N471AM
- Make / Model
- AVIAT AIRCRAFT INC A-1B
- Year of manufacture
- 2004 · 2 years old at event
- Engine
- LYCOMING O-360 SERIES (180 hp)
- Seats / Engines
- 2 seats · 1 engine
- Last airworthiness date
- 20040623
- ADS-B equipped
- Yes — Mode-S A5C4DD
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll, which resulted in a loss of control and subsequent nose over. Contributing factors were the tailwind and the soft snow-covered terrain.
Factual narrative
On March 31, 2006, about 1045 mountain standard time, an Aviat A-1B airplane, N471AM, nosed over following a loss of control during the landing roll on runway 03 at the Driggs-Reed Memorial Airport, Driggs, Idaho. The private pilot, the sole occupant, was not injured. The airplane, which was registered to and operated by the pilot, sustained substantial damage. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed for the local personal flight. The 14 CFR Part 91 flight departed from Driggs about 1020. According to the pilot, he was performing touch-and-go landings on runway 03. During the landing roll, he experienced a tailwind, and the airplane departed the right side of the runway. The airplane's wheels sank into snow about 12 inches deep, and the airplane nosed over. The right wing strut was bent, and the top of the vertical stabilizer and the rudder were crushed. The following wind conditions were recorded by the Automated Surface Observing Station at the airport: At 0956, wind from 360 degrees at 3 knots. At 1056, wind from 190 degrees at 11 knots. At 1112, wind from 200 degrees at 14 knots, remark wind shift at 1052. The pilot reported that after the accident, he was told that "the wind had shifted to about a 10 knot tailwind from that reported by the FBO and [he] was unprepared for this condition." According to the pilot, he was performing touch-and-go landings on runway 03. During the landing roll, he experienced a tailwind, and the airplane departed the right side of the runway. The airplane's wheels sank into snow about 12 inches deep, and the airplane nosed over. The right wing strut was bent, and the top of the vertical stabilizer and the rudder were crushed. The following wind conditions were recorded by the Automated Surface Observing Station at the airport: At 0956, wind from 360 degrees at 3 knots. At 1056, wind from 190 degrees at 11 knots. At 1112, wind from 200 degrees at 14 knots, remark wind shift at 1052. The pilot reported that after the accident, he was told that "the wind had shifted to about a 10 knot tailwind from that reported by the FBO and [he] was unprepared for this condition." Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2006_SEA06CA070.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Search this event elsewhere
External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.
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Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control). All research papers
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER) A Scoping Review of Aviation Loss of Control Inflight Research
Loss of control – inflight (LOC-I) contributes to aircraft accidents at unacceptably high rates. Significant industry efforts and research have aimed to improve LOC-I prevention, detection, and recove…
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article Loss of Control In-Flight (LOC-I) — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary comprehensive knowledge-base entry on Loss of Control In-Flight — definitions, contributing factors, accident case studies (Air France 447, Colgan 3407), and prevention strategies.
- Semantic Scholar 2024 · Article (International Conference on Networking and Services) Risk Assessment of Loss of Control In-Flight Trajectories for Urban Air Mobility Safety
In Urban Air Mobility (UAM), maintaining a minimum separation between aircraft is a safety requirement, which becomes challenging amidst congested air traffic and off-nominal conditions, such as Loss …
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2022 · Accident report Loss of Control on Takeoff in Icing Conditions — Citation 560XL
Cessna Citation 560XL fatal takeoff icing accident, March 2018. Investigation of a Citation 560XL loss-of-control takeoff accident in icing conditions.
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aviation) ANALYSIS OF GENERAL AVIATION FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS INVOLVING INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL USING A STATE-BASED APPROACH
Inflight loss of control (LOC-I) is a significant cause of General Aviation (GA) fixed-wing aircraft accidents. The United States National Transportation Safety Board’s database provides a rich source…
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Presentation Use of Design of Experiments in Determining Neural Network Architectures for Loss of Control Detection
Abstract—We describe empirical methods for selecting a neural network architecture to implement belief state inference on generic commercial transport aircraft.