LAX99LA040 · Grumman-Schweizer G-164C
Grumman-Schweizer G-164C · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Biggs, CA to Corning Municipal Airport (0O4)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA040
- 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
Grumman-Schweizer G-164C
- Aircraft type
- Grumman Schweizer G-164
- 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
- N6596K
- Operator
- Dale Jones
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Biggs, CATo Corning Municipal Airport (0O4), Corning, CA
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Flt control syst, rudder control attach points › Disengaged
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, adjustment, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while airborne he attempted to adjust the right rudder pedal. Once he pulled the locking pin, the rudder pedal became dislodged and the pilot was unable to correct the malfunction. He diverted to an airport with a longer runway to make a precautionary landing. The pilot stated that he had to apply cross controls to compensate for the loss of the rudder pedal on landing. On the landing rollout, the locking tail wheel did not lock and the aircraft began to sidestep on the runway. The right gear failed and the right wing and propeller struck the ground. No further mechanical malfunctions were noted. The rudder adjustment is a manual mechanism, located down by the rudder pedal that consists of a pin, which secures the pedal to the mechanism, and a plate that has holes in it. The plate also has two 90-degree tabs on either side of it to prevent the pin from becoming dislodged. The pilot would have to bend down to gain access to the pin to readjust the rudders. Once the pin has been pulled for readjustment, it is possible to push the pin past the tabs, making the process of moving the pin back into position very difficult.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to attempt readjustment of the rudder pedal in-flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA040
- Event ID
- 20001211X11465
- Case number
- LAX99LA040
- 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: 099e50d75b8e335cdd7bcbf2a447fe5c17666fdacee68b15a51b3101ef9f78f7; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:16:22.028Z.