FTW98LA368 · Massey CHRISTEN EAGLE II CHRISTEN E
Massey CHRISTEN EAGLE II CHRISTEN E · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA368
- 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
Massey CHRISTEN EAGLE II CHRISTEN E
- Aircraft type
- Massey CHRISTEN EAGLE
- 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
- N72BJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS)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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
- Wing, spar › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that the in-flight structural failure of the wing spars for the lower wings on a homebuilt experimental biplane. The pilot reported that the airplane was in a shallow dive at an airspeed of 190 to 200 mph, while at an altitude of 4,200 feet above ground level, when he felt a flutter, accompanied by a severe airframe vibration. He also observed the flying wires on the biplane lose their tension 'and make large loops.' The pilot added that the airplane 'may have rolled or tumbled.' He regained control of the airplane after reducing engine power and landed the airplane without further incident. Examination of the airplane by the pilot revealed that all four lower wing spars (forward and aft) failed in flight. The pilot recommended a redesign of the drag and anti-drag blocks at the compression ribs. However, the reason for the failure of the lower wing spars could not be conclusively determined.
Probable cause
The inflight structural failure of the wing spars for the lower wings due to an undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA368
- Event ID
- 20001211X10858
- Case number
- FTW98LA368
- 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: 6d0ffd33a81c53f84011c6042c9f9fbe094e94a6faf0d236be45f11b5eac18ad; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:03:37.152Z.