NYC97LA066 · Lowe SUPER KOALA SUPER KOAL
Lowe SUPER KOALA SUPER KOAL · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97LA066
- 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
- 2 · 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
Lowe SUPER KOALA SUPER KOAL
- Aircraft type
- Lowe SUPER KOALA
- 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
- N4424V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo not recorded
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate compliance determination
- Wing, bracing strut › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness heard the airplane flying overhead, and heard a 'sharp snap.' When he looked, he estimated that the airplane was about 1,500 to 2,500 feet above the ground, descending in a wide 'swirling' motion, counter clockwise. The airplane struck the ground about 2,000 feet from his residence. The homebuilt airplane had been constructed in Florida, and then purchased by another pilot. The new owner trailered the airplane to Pennsylvania, and installed the wings. The airplane was inspected by a FAA Inspector, test flown for 40 hours by the accident pilot and the owner, and had an annual inspection performed on it. After the annual inspection, it was again inspected by the FAA Inspector, and an airworthiness certificate was issued. About 4 to 5 flight hours later the accident occurred. Examination of the wreckage revealed the right rear jury strut was broken from the rear spar attaching point, with the jury base plate still intact. The two self locking nuts and bolts holding the base plate to the spar were only finger tight. The jury strut connections were not visible through the completed wing inspection holes. Some glued areas contained sanding marks, but were not covered with glue.
Probable cause
improper construction by the builder which led to the failure of the strut and wing assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97LA066
- Event ID
- 20001208X07621
- Case number
- NYC97LA066
- 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: 776fe49ce042544e630c8b92bc54b917d062ed0f1362180b25de695ce025ee7e; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:00:38.246Z.