LAX98LA270 · Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8F LUSCOMBE 8
Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8F LUSCOMBE 8 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Falcon Field (FFZ) to Tucson International Airport (TUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA270
- 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
Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8F LUSCOMBE 8
- Aircraft type
- Silvaire 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
- N1616Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZTo Tucson International Airport (TUS)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported that the aircraft landed fast on the main wheels, began veering left off the runway, became airborne, touched down in a dirt area, became airborne again, went through a chain link fence, and collided with an occupied security truck in the Arizona Air National Guard compound. The airport was using runway 11 for takeoffs and landings. During initial contact with the Tucson Air Traffic Control Tower, the pilot had requested runway 3 for landing, and, the tower issued the requested clearance, along with the wind direction and speed of 280 degrees at 7 knots. The airframe and engine were examined following recovery with no discrepancies noted.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of the wrong runway for the wind conditions, his inadequate compensation for the existing quartering tailwind condition, and, his failure to maintain directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA270
- Event ID
- 20001211X10902
- Case number
- LAX98LA270
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1998-08-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ddba85aca679cddaa60724dad20cd8bd1536118570ba9945d6f55e673950606f; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:21:18.205Z.