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Atlas / NTSB / WPR25LA104

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR25LA104

2025-02-20 Waterville, Washington, United States Airport · 2S5 None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N7792A

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 180A

Year of manufacture

1956 · 69 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR O-470 SERIES (230 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19561217

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AA8D15

Registrant of record

LODATO ZACK

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during landing roll.

Factual narrative

The pilot receiving instruction reported that, during an instructional flight in a tailwheel equipped airplane, they were practicing crosswind takeoffs and landings. He performed a wheel landing and touched down left of the runway centerline, and during the landing roll, the left main landing gear contacted residual snow/slush on the runway near the base of a 3-ft tall snow berm. The airplane subsequently veered left and struck the snow berm on the runway edge before it came to rest nose low. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. At the time of the accident, the pilot was landing on runway 25, with the wind from 160° at 6 knots. 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
  • Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Snow/ice-Effect on operation

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_WPR25LA104.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 (icing). 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 ↗