LAX96LA240 · Experimental MINI MUSTANG MINI MUSTA
Experimental MINI MUSTANG MINI MUSTA · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during initial climb
From Skypark Airport (BTF) to Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA240
- 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
- 1 · 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
Experimental MINI MUSTANG MINI MUSTA
- Aircraft type
- Experimental MINI MUSTANG
- 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
- N61D
- Operator
- James B. Carruth · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Skypark Airport (BTF), Bountiful, UTTo Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC), Prescott, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on a personal cross-country flight and stopped en route at Page, Arizona, during high crosswind conditions. After a brief stop, he departed. Once airborne, he asked the unicom operator about the distance to Flagstaff. He proceeded to circle the general area for several minutes, then asked for landing information. After several approaches to the main runway and to a dirt crosswind runway, he landed on the main runway. He added 15 gallons of fuel and again departed on the main runway. After liftoff, the right wing lifted twice (banking the airplane to the left). During the second bank, the airplane rolled to a nearly 'perpendicular' attitude, and the left wing tip contacted the surface, cartwheeling the airplane. A 30-degree right crosswind was reported at 25 gusting to 30 knots.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for crosswind conditions, and his failure to maintain control of the aircraft. A factor relating to the accident was: the gusty/crosswind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA240
- Event ID
- 20001208X06040
- Case number
- LAX96LA240
- 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: feeb6a82fa2cc057305960b59536fcdf1259779141e49eaa1a4587e739cbfe66; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:19:15.893Z.