ATL96LA120 · Great Lakes GL2T-1A-2
Great Lakes GL2T-1A-2 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Montgomery Regional (Dannelly Field) Airport (KMGM) to Chapman, AL (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96LA120
- 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
Great Lakes GL2T-1A-2
- Aircraft type
- Great Lakes GL2
- 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
- N47L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery Regional (Dannelly Field) Airport (KMGM)To Chapman, AL (no airport)
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Flight control, rudder › Binding(mechanical)
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During takeoff, the airplane swerved abruptly to the left, collided with a runway light, then nosed over. During the postaccident examination, it was discovered that the tail steering arm would intermittently lock the rudder in a fully deflected position, with the trailing edge to the left, while allowing the tail wheel to remain aligned with the airplane centerline. Damage to the airplane, such as scuffing of the circumference of the right tire outboard side wall, and no flat spots on the left tire from a locked brake, was consistent with a fully deflected rudder at the time the tail was lifted for the takeoff. The deflected rudder would result in an abrupt swerve to the left when the tail wheel broke contact with the runway. Additionally, the airplane departed the runway about 350 feet from the point the takeoff was initiated, indicating that the swerve commenced about the point the tail would come up during takeoff roll.
Probable cause
The locked rudder in a fully deflected position which resulted in the pilot's inability to maintain directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96LA120
- Event ID
- 20001208X06419
- Case number
- ATL96LA120
- 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: 69b6cefdb3218d7b5818decc5003a99ad09380ce568b4b2bb24d68223cda20fd; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:26:12.244Z.