Cessna 180 N4802

Summary

On 2 April 2021 at about 18:35 local time, a Cessna 180 registered N4802 was involved in an accident near Denver, Colorado, United States. One person was 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

2 April 2021 at 18:35

Classification

Accident

Location

Denver, Colorado, United States

Nearest airport

Platte Valley Airpark (18V)

Coordinates

40.1092, -104.7138

Aircraft

Cessna 180

Registration

N4802

Category

Airplane

Year built

1978

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Fort Collins → Unknown

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

CEN21LA182

Nobody was injured.

The pilot’s loss of situational awareness, and his unintended landing on a soft unimproved dirt road, which resulted in a loss of directional control into soft ground and the airplane to subsequently nose over.

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

Read the full NTSB narrative

The pilot reported that he saw, what appeared to be his intended landing runway and set up for landing. During the landing touchdown, the pilot noticed that the airplane was difficult to control due to the soft soil. As the airplane continued the rollout, it drifted about 20 ft off the pilot’s intended direction into softer soil. Just before the airplane came to a stop, the right tire sunk into the soft ground and the airplane nosed over coming to rest inverted. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right-wing strut and vertical stabilizer. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations. After the accident, the pilot reported that he had not landed on his intended runway but on an unimproved dirt road about 0.3 miles from the runway that ran parallel to the runway. The pilot reported that he had spent too much time looking for traffic in the landing pattern and lost situational awareness of his position relative to the runway.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.