LAX96LA312 · Ryan ST3KR
Ryan ST3KR · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Red Bluff Municipal Airport (RBL) to Hooker Municipal Airport (O45)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA312
- 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
Ryan ST3KR
- Aircraft type
- Ryan ST3
- 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
- N57011
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Red Bluff Municipal Airport (RBL), Red Bluff, CATo Hooker Municipal Airport (O45)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, not corrected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the touchdown and initial landing rollout were normal. As the aircraft slowed to 20 mph the aircraft started an arc to the right. The pilot stated that full left rudder and brake 'made the arc tighten to the right...(and)...I released the left brake and applied a little right brake.' The arc began to lessen, but not enough to prevent the aircraft from leaving the runway and heading for a drainage culvert. The pilot was concerned about the aircraft striking the culvert and nosing over onto its back so he intentionally 'stepped hard on the right rudder and brake to purposely ground loop.' During the ground loop, the aircraft wing struck a concrete barrier above the drainage culvert. The aircraft was examined by an FAA airworthiness inspector who reported that he did not observe any damage or defect of the landing gear or brakes not related to the impact sequence.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the aircraft during the landing rollout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA312
- Event ID
- 20001208X06557
- Case number
- LAX96LA312
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-08-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d8eb8ff34e55d429e615bb60608c571fe8e5303301944587c214a14c889376b5; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:24:35.682Z.