LAX99LA142 · Witzel GLASSAIR II FT GLASSAIR I
Witzel GLASSAIR II FT GLASSAIR I · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to Midland Airpark (KMDD)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA142
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Witzel GLASSAIR II FT GLASSAIR I
- Aircraft type
- Witzel GLASSAIR II FT
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N71TL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CATo Midland Airpark (KMDD), Midland, TX
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Casa Grande, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he listened to the automated weather and learned that the winds were from 280 degrees at 10 knots, gusting to 25 knots. He attempted to land on runway 23 and said he carried some extra speed to account for the extra wind gusts. He said he encountered a wind gust, which lifted the airplane about 8 feet off the ground. He then decided to do a go-around but was unable to roll the wings level and thought he may have been below stall speed at that point. The left wing impacted the ground and the airplane cartwheeled. A CFI witness, who landed immediately prior to the accident, said as they landed their airplane the winds were gusting to 25-28 knots, and he estimated they had a 30-knot crosswind component. He said he saw the accident airplane on approach, and that it 'looked fast on final.' He said it appeared that it bounced several times prior to a wind gust picking up the right wing.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for the existing crosswind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA142
- Event ID
- 20001205X00493
- Case number
- LAX99LA142
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1b7f2fd71977616a478c78c9ca41885c91c35367a7f9b1b9eaf6d0e37e0c0024; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:34:20.853Z.