CHI98LA234 · American Aviation Corp. (AAC) AA-1TW
American Aviation Corp. (AAC) AA-1TW · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI) to M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA234
- 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
American Aviation Corp. (AAC) AA-1TW
- Aircraft type
- American Aviation Corp (aac) AA-1
- 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
- N5643L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI), Cape Girardeau, MOTo M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK), POINT LOOKOUT, MO
- 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
- 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
- Landing gear, tailwheel assembly › Corroded
- Landing gear, tailwheel assembly › Failure
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Point Lookout, MO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that during the landing roll the tailwheel began to vibrate. The vibration increased and the airplane made a 'sharp yaw to the left.' After about 30 degrees of turn, the right landing gear attach bracket bolts sheared and the right wing contacted the runway. The airplane then skidded to the right side of the runway and exited the runway tail first. Inspection of the airplane revealed the right arm of the tailwheel had failed approximately 1' from the center of the arm. Corrosion was present on the factured surface.
Probable cause
the failure of the tailwheel assembly due to corrosion. A factor associated with the accident was the overload failure of the right main landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA234
- Event ID
- 20001211X10488
- Case number
- CHI98LA234
- 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: 041897019faefc1262ce8356f3ae3691341ac2d58ac4ab35f4fb883ffcd073de; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:35:36.001Z.