LAX95LA306 · Short LANCAIR 320 LANCAIR 32
Short LANCAIR 320 LANCAIR 32 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Delano Municipal Airport (DLO) to O88
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA306
- 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
Short LANCAIR 320 LANCAIR 32
- Aircraft type
- Short LANCAIR 320
- 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
- N3204S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delano Municipal Airport (DLO), Delano, CATo O88
- 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
- Flt control syst, wing flap control cable/rod › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF THE AMATEUR BUILT AIRCRAFT REPORTED THAT DURING FLARE FOR LANDING THE RIGHT WING DROPPED AND CONTACTED THE RUNWAY DESPITE HIS EFFORTS TO HOLD THE WING UP USING FULL LEFT AILERON CONTROL. THE AIRCRAFT BOUNCED, THE RIGHT WING DROPPED AGAIN, AND THE AIRCRAFT VEERED OFF THE RUNWAY TO THE LEFT AND GROUND LOOPED. POSTACCIDENT INSPECTION OF THE AIRCRAFT REVEALED THAT THE LEFT FLAP WAS FULLY EXTENDED AND THE RIGHT FULLY RETRACTED, WITH NO INDICATION OF IMPACT DAMAGE ON THE RIGHT FLAP. THE RIGHT WING FLAP ACTUATING PUSHROD WAS FOUND BENT AND THE THREADED PORTION OF THE ROD END WAS FRACTURED. THE DESIGNER OF THE AIRCRAFT, WHO SELLS THE AIRCRAFT TO BUILDERS IN KIT FORM, STATED THAT THE FAILED PUSHROD HAD BEEN SUPERSEDED BY A STRONGER ROD DESIGN 4 YEARS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT IN RESPONSE TO OPERATOR REPORTS OF BENT PUSHRODS. AT THAT TIME, A BULLETIN REGARDING THE CHANGE WAS SENT TO KIT OWNERS.
Probable cause
the failure of the wing flap actuator pushrod creating an asymmetrical flap condition during the landing flare maneuver. A contributing factor was the failure of the owner/builder to incorporate a manufacturer's design change for a stronger actuator pushrod.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA306
- Event ID
- 20001207X04300
- Case number
- LAX95LA306
- 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: 9b05d60feba22e6747c02699e6ec33bfe129ca21fcedacc9cb7e52747c0a0cec; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:07:12.300Z.