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Atlas / NTSB / WPR16LA109

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR16LA109

2016-05-13 Las Vegas, Nevada, United States Airport · VGT None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's loss of directional control during the landing roll, which resulted in a runway excursion.

Factual narrative

On May 13, 2016, about 1415 Pacific daylight time, a Cessna 172RG airplane, N6281V, sustained substantial damage following a loss of control and runway excursion at the North Las Vegas Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada. The commercial pilot was not injured. The airplane was registered to Black Ridge Partners, LLC and was operated by the pilot as a personal flight under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no Federal Aviation Administration flight plan had been filed for the flight. The pilot reported that following a normal touch down in variable gusty wind conditions, while braking to slow to taxi speed, the airplane veered slightly to the left, and she corrected with right rudder. Then while braking again, the airplane veered to the left, and did not react to brake or rudder control inputs. Subsequently, the airplane exited the left side of the runway and struck a runway distance remaining sign, resulting in substantial damage to the left wing and left horizontal stabilizer. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airframe or landing gear components that would have precluded normal operation. The commercial pilot reported that, during the landing roll following a normal touchdown in variable, gusting wind conditions, the airplane veered slightly to the left as she applied brakes, and she corrected with right rudder. She applied brakes a second time, and the airplane again veered left but did not respond to brake or rudder control inputs. The airplane exited the left side of the runway and struck a runway distance remaining sign, resulting in substantial damage to the left wing and left horizontal stabilizer. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airframe or landing gear components that would have precluded normal operation. Given the lack of mechanical anomalies found, it is likely that the pilot lost control of the airplane during the landing roll. 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-Variable wind-Contributed to outcome

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2016_WPR16LA109.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 (loss of control, 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 ↗