LAX97LA221 · Staudaucher S300D
Staudaucher S300D · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA221
- 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
Staudaucher S300D
- Aircraft type
- Staudaucher S300
- 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
- N540DH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), AZTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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, aileron attachment › Separation
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Unapproved part
- Owner/pilot mechanic › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During practice aerobic maneuvers, the pilot heard a loud bang and noticed that the right aileron had departed the aircraft. The pilot stated that the separation occurred during a 9-G pull from horizontal to a 45-degree nose high angle. A postaccident examination of the aircraft and aileron revealed that the aileron attach points were fabricated with automotive hardware welded to plates which had received no heat treatment. Shim plates were found under the attach brackets. Additionally, the aileron had been modified with an addition of aluminum plates to the trailing edge of the aileron without rebalancing the flight controls. The kit manufacturer said the pilot had found the two nuts which hold the aileron hinge to the aileron loose on several previous occasions. The examination revealed that there were signs of slippage and wear at the right center attach point where the shim plates were inserted.
Probable cause
The owner/pilot's decision to use automotive hardware, which had not been heat treated, and the practice of adding aluminum plates to the trailing edge of the aileron without rebalancing the flight controls, which resulted in the separation of the aileron at the attachment fitting.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA221
- Event ID
- 20001208X07966
- Case number
- LAX97LA221
- 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: db1707a2cc6784c3a0cb78857d025715c234c19d42e9aa96b91c36fe060a954e; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:32:13.413Z.