FTW98LA181 · Waxenfelter THORP T-18
Waxenfelter THORP T-18 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Russellville Regional Airport (RUE) to Petit Jean Park Airport (MPJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA181
- 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
Waxenfelter THORP T-18
- Aircraft type
- Waxenfelter THORP T-18
- 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
- N18WX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Russellville Regional Airport (RUE), Russellville, ARTo Petit Jean Park Airport (MPJ)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During landing roll on runway 20, the aircraft abruptly veered left and departed the runway impacting a tree. The pilot reported that 'very little' cross wind correction was required during the landing. During the landing roll, he held the tail off until it came down 'normally.' A short distance after the tail wheel touched down the aircraft started to veer to the left. 'Normal amount of correction (right rudder) was totally ineffective.' The aircraft departed the left side of the runway with 'full right rudder, right brake locked, and stick full back.' The aircraft was recovering to the right when it slid into a tree. The pilot reported that the wind was from 170 degrees at 4 to 5 knots. His examination of the aircraft after the event did not reveal any mechanical problems with the flight controls. The pilot had accumulated at total of 99 hours in his tailwheel equipped airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA181
- Event ID
- 20001211X09860
- Case number
- FTW98LA181
- 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 1998-04-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4fcd2dad32b71d440219d5c21c16fdc041044a30592b34e556cf2adb307b22f2; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:53:39.027Z.