LAX98LA165 · Waco YMF
Redrock Biplane Tours Waco YMF · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
From Seychelles International Airport (SEZ) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA165
- 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
Waco YMF
- Aircraft type
- Waco YMF
- 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
- N43064
- Operator
- Redrock Biplane Tours
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seychelles International Airport (SEZ)To 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Ignition system, magneto › Not secured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A ground crewman was injured when rotating the propeller before engine start, and the propeller reversed in a 180-degree kickback. The pilot reported that the magnetos had been in the off position and only the master switch was on. An FAA inspector examined the ignition system and found no evidence of mechanical malfunction. He also reported that the aircraft had two 100-hour inspections within the past 2 months, at which time the ignition system was checked with no abnormalities noted.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to secure the ignition system and magnetos in the off position before asking the ground crewman to rotate the propeller.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA165
- Event ID
- 20001211X10133
- Case number
- LAX98LA165
- 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: 26a35d09f0449c579b975b34a17340e6d6eb6ddca65ceea606ae12833608f420; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:31:57.418Z.