After an uneventful cross-country flight, the Cessna 172 landed smoothly on the runway at the airport in Sun River, Oregon, and started to veer left.
The pilot added right rudder, but despite his actions the airplane continued to veer left.
He aborted the landing by applying full engine power, while continuing to apply the right rudder, but the airplane hit a snowbank on the left side of the runway and nosed over. It sustained substantial damage to the wings and vertical stabilizer.
The pilot told investigators the runway was coated in icy patches.
He added there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll on a runway with icy patches, which resulted in impact with a snowbank and a subsequent nose-over.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This January 2020 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
A few decades ago I landed a fairly new BEECH Musketer on a patchy ice covered runway at KSPI.
No problem until a dry section.
The brakes had locked up in flight. The plane suddenly turned 60°
Full power and rudder recovered.
Ttaxied to FBO where it was seen 5 of six plies were gone in flat spot.
An AD was issued soon afterward about parking brake engaging in flight.
I find this troubling, after reading the report to the NTSB: “The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll on a runway with icy patches, which resulted in impact with a snowbank and a subsequent nose-over.”
Unless I missed something, there were no NOTAMs about runway conditions (IFR flight). Nothing said about ice contamination. Automated wx reporting did not have an additional notice.
So, with a slight offset to the runway, the wind could blow you sideways, and you may not have enough rudder authority to correct for it. Therefore, you don’t have differential braking ability either. Now the single engine Cessnas I’ve flown have a nose wheel shimmy problem from time to time. So this does not tell me that the bungie broke (had it happen on a C77R on DRY pavement, and that took brakes to lockup to get it to steer right).
So we don’t know if that is what happened with this aircraft. And NTSB did not go on site.
So, had this been at DFW on a taxi-way, the NTSB findings would be different (actually happened). But this is a GA pilot without a union back him. So rubber stamp pilot error.