NTSB CAROL · Event
Event WPR21LA302
Registry · N946PD
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
PIPER J3C-65
Year of manufacture
1947 · 74 years old at event
Engine
CONT MOTOR C85 SERIES (85 hp)
Seats / Engines
2 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date
19560609
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S AD24BB
Registrant of record
SALE REPORTED
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 impact with terrain.
Factual narrative
The pilot in the tail wheel-equipped airplane reported that, while performing a touch-and-go landing with a slight crosswind from the right, the airplane drifted off the left side of the runway and into a depression in the terrain. The airplane collided with a berm which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage. 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).
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
- — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained
- — Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Crosswind-Effect on operation
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2021_WPR21LA302.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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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.
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article
Runway Excursion — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary runway excursion review — RE-OE (overruns) + RE-LO (lateral). Risk drivers: long landing, high approach speed, contaminated surface, tailwind, mis-set autobrakes.
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2019 · Accident report
Embraer ERJ 175 Runway Excursion at Charlotte Douglas
Republic Airline ERJ-175 runway excursion CLT, January 2018. Examines a low-energy runway excursion involving misuse of autobrakes + thrust reverser response after a high-crosswind landing on a contam…
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Presentation
Uncovering Resilient Behavior in the Aviation Safety Reporting System Using Large Language Models
Resiliency is present in everyday life, both in system design and exhibited by the operators that function within these systems.
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
Uncovering Resilient Behavior in the Aviation Safety Reporting System Using Large Language Models
Resiliency is present in everyday life, both in system design and exhibited by the operators that function within these systems.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World
Runway Safety Initiative Final Report (RSI)
Foundation Runway Safety Initiative final report — comprehensive analysis of runway excursion + incursion risk drivers worldwide.
- Semantic Scholar 2020 · Article
Towards online prediction of safety-critical landing metrics in aviation using supervised machine learning
Abstract In recent years, due to the increased availability of data and improvements in computing power, application of machine learning techniques to various aviation safety problems for identifying,…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗