CHI98LA232 · Luscombe 8A
Luscombe 8A · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while standing
From an unrecorded airport to NOAHS ARK, MO (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA232
- 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
Luscombe 8A
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe 8
- 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
- N71306
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo NOAHS ARK, MO (private airstrip)
- 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) operating
- 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 › Starting procedure, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he couldn't find anyone to assist him in hand starting the aircraft, so he decided to proceed by himself. The pilot stated that he could not get the engine to start after many attempts. The pilot adjusted the throttle, increasing it, and again attempted to hand start the engine. The pilot stated that the engine started, ran rough for the first couple of rotations, and then the rpms began to increase rapidly. The aircraft began to pivot around the left main gear and the pilot was unable to access the cockpit to retard the throttle. The aircraft continued to turn to the left, departed the tarmac onto a grass area, until the right wing impacted a utility pole and guy wire. Post accident investigation revealed that the pilot had not had flown in over six years and had not had a Biennial Flight Review in over 72 months. It was also revealed that the hand brake only engages the left brake on the aircraft, which caused the aircraft to rotate about the left main gear.
Probable cause
the improper use of the engine starting procedure. Factors contributing to the accident were the pilot in command's lack of recent experience, the aircraft not being tied down, the utility pole and guy wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA232
- Event ID
- 20001211X10486
- Case number
- CHI98LA232
- 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: 6e4e0d5f10870d7fb914ba8bb2e5dad7fa69e40185ff11baa7afb27a3b8050a5; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:35:54.840Z.