FTW98LA298 · North American AT-6G
North American AT-6G · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Centennial Airport (APA) to 2V2
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA298
- 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
North American AT-6G
- Aircraft type
- North American AT-6
- 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
- N8399H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Denver, COTo 2V2
- 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
- Landing gear, steering system › Failure, partial
- Maintenance, adjustment › Improper
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Longmont, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was given airport advisories on unicom. He was told that the active runway was 29 and that the wind was 'light and variable.' He said that the 'windsock's movement was hardly perceptible and the velocity of the indicator indicated less than 5 knots.' The pilot reported that after touchdown, 'the aircraft's rollout path took multiple, short, quick inputs from the rudder to keep properly aligned with the runway centerline as the aircraft proceeded down the runway.' He further reported the rudder inputs became ineffective after approximately 400 to 500 feet of landing roll and the aircraft exited the right side of the runway. The aircraft subsequently impacted an airport taxiway sign, damaging the left main landing gear and the left wing. The aircraft came to rest with its nose down. The pilot said that the tail wheel steering cables had recently been replaced. Postaccident evaluation of the tail wheel steering cables by maintenance personnel found a tension of 5 pounds on these cables; 20 pounds is considered normal.
Probable cause
The partial failure of the tail wheel steering system due to improper maintenance and the subsequent inadvertent ground loop during the landing sequence. Factors were the airport taxiway sign and the subsequent failure of the left main landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA298
- Event ID
- 20001211X10570
- Case number
- FTW98LA298
- 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: 5688c352ac591be33bf51b35edb1f998d6b469c81af6a82dd5e0555709efc216; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:34:31.652Z.