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Atlas / NTSB / WPR21LA189

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR21LA189

2021-05-07 Arlington, Washington, United States Airport · AWO None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N31B

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 180J

Engine

CONT MOTOR O-470 SERIES (230 hp)

Seats / Engines

6 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19861219

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A34491

Registrant of record

BOHON TODD R

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during landing, with a crosswind, which resulted in a runway excursion and subsequent impact with terrain.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that before landing, the automated weather report for the airport indicated the wind from 250o at 13 knots, gusting to 17 knots. During the landing in the tailwheel equipped airplane on runway 29, the airplane weathervaned hard to the left into the wind. Despite his actions to control the airplane during the crosswind landing, the airplane departed the runway, and both wings impacted terrain. The airplane came to rest in a nose down attitude. The right wing was substantially damaged. The pilot reported that shortly after the accident, the wind had increased to 23 knots. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions 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).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained
  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Crosswind-Effect on operation

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2021_WPR21LA189.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 ↗