CHI94LA008 · Luscombe 8A
Luscombe 8A · Accident: abrupt maneuver during landing
From Nappanee Municipal Airport (C03) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94LA008
- 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
Luscombe 8A
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N71492
- Operator
- Slagel, Dean G. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nappanee Municipal Airport (C03), Nappanee, INTo 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
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED HE SIDE SLIPPED THE AIRPLANE TO THE RUNWAY THRESHOLD, THEN MADE A WHEEL LANDING. DURING ROLLOUT THE PILOT INTENTIONALLY RAISED THE RIGHT WING TO VEER OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE GRASS STRIP TOWARDS THE AIRPORT BUILDINGS. THE PILOT REPORTED HE FELT THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR TIP INWARDS SO HE STRAIGHTENED OUT THE LANDING ROLL. THE AIRPLANE CAME TO REST ABOUT 30 FEET OFF THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY IN A CORN FIELD, WITH THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED. THE PILOT STATED HE LANDED TO THE NORTHEAST (UPHILL) ON THE 800 FOOT LONG GRASS STRIP. THE PILOT REPORTED THE WINDS WERE OUT OF 240 DEGREES AT 5 KNOTS, AND THE RUNWAY CONDITION WAS 'DAMP, FRESH CUT.'
Probable cause
the pilot's abrupt maneuver (intentional swerve) and main gear collapse during the landing roll on a short grass strip.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94LA008
- Event ID
- 20001211X13533
- Case number
- CHI94LA008
- 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: 4418e8dc669a5baad5c255c5ab5efe868354bbca67805764ce352b4ef67d1c4d; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:32:58.329Z.