LAX96FA228 · British Aerospace BA-3100/3201 BA-3100/32
British Aerospace BA-3100/3201 BA-3100/32 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP) to Kingman Airport (IGM)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96FA228
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
British Aerospace BA-3100/3201 BA-3100/32
- Aircraft type
- British Aerospace BA-3100
- 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
- N926AE
- Operator
- Kenneth A. Denyer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP)To Kingman Airport (IGM), Kingman, AZ
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Flightcrew › Directional control, not maintained
- Flightcrew › Propeller, not set
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of San Luis Obispo, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The first officer, who was 6 months past due for a proficiency check in the aircraft, was in the left seat for the ferry flight and applied power on takeoff. At 40 knots he transitioned from tiller to rudder steering while the captain was setting takeoff power. Moments later the crew felt the aircraft jerk to the left. The captain took the controls and brought both power levers back to flight idle and then into reverse. The captain attempted to control the aircraft but did not have access to the tiller from his position in the aircraft. Full application of rudder and differential braking could not bring the aircraft under control as it veered off the left side of the runway, then back to the right edge. Following the accident, the nose wheel steering, brakes, and propellers were functionally tested in accordance with the aircraft maintenance manuals, with no discrepancies noted. The FDR showed that the airspeed peaked at 58 knots. The rudder effectiveness increases incrementally from 40 knots IAS to full authority at 70 knots. A CVR tape sound spectrum analysis revealed that the left engine was in the start lock position during the takeoff. Normal procedure after engine start is to bring the props into reverse momentarily to bring them out of the start locks. There is no cockpit indicator for the position of the propellers relative to the start locks.
Probable cause
The flight crew's loss of directional control resulting from an attempted takeoff with the left propeller on the start lock. Factors in the accident were: the lack of cockpit caution/warning system/lights available to verify that the propellers are out of the start locks; and the captain's location in the right seat without access to the nosewheel steering tiller.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96FA228
- Event ID
- 20001208X06018
- Case number
- LAX96FA228
- 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: 55037172140090adc5da69680b4cb754143252e5371e5e93a446fb5407c430d2; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:21:07.090Z.