Cessna 180 N3115D

Summary

On 29 September 2012 at about 19:10 local time, a Cessna 180 registered N3115D was involved in an accident near Huntington, Utah, United States. 4 people were on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

29 September 2012 at 19:10

Classification

Accident

Location

Huntington, Utah, United States

Nearest airport

Huntington Municipal (69V)

Coordinates

39.3611, -110.9169

Aircraft

Cessna 180

Registration

N3115D

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Huntington → Huntington

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

WPR12CA440

Nobody was injured.

The pilot's inadvertent encounter with a gust front during the takeoff roll, which resulted in loss of control of the airplane.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The commercial pilot/owner was using his high-wing, tailwheel-equipped airplane to participate in an Experimental Aircraft Association Young Eagles event at a non-towered airport. The airport was situated in high desert terrain at an elevation of about 6,000 feet. About 1300, when the pilot had already completed 8 flights, and the other airplanes and pilots had also been actively flying, the pilot boarded three young passengers. According to the pilot, there were no clouds in the immediate vicinity, the wind was calm, and an automated weather broadcast for an airport about 17 miles to the northeast reported similar conditions. He started the airplane and taxied out for departure on runway 8. The airport windsock was "motionless" as he began the takeoff roll. A few hundred feet down the runway, while the airplane was still below liftoff speed, the left wing rose up, and the airplane weathervaned nose left about 60 degrees. The airplane exited the left (north) side of the runway, and then rotated about 120 degrees nose right before it came to rest. The right wing and fuselage sustained substantial damage, and the pilot and passengers were uninjured. About the same time, a flight instructor in an airplane on the downwind leg for runway 8 encountered "turbulence," which resulted in a 500-foot altitude loss before she could stop the descent by "climbing" at her best angle-of-climb speed. Numerous persons at the airport for the event reported that a sudden, strong, and unexpected "wind gust" swept across the airport, and disturbed many objects on the ground, including some airplanes. They reported that it traveled approximately northwest to southeast, which meant that it approached the accident airplane from its left rear quarter. One pilot on the ground reported that there was a "storm brewing" near the mountains, about 6 miles northwest of the airport, at the time of the accident. According to Federal Aviation Administration Advisory Circular 00-24 (Thunderstorms), "Gust fronts often move far ahead (up to 15 miles) of associated precipitation. The gust front causes a rapid and sometimes drastic change in surface wind ahead of an approaching storm."

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.