LAX94LA008 · Stinson 108
Stinson 108 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Polacca Airport (P10) to FFZ
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA008
- 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
Stinson 108
- Aircraft type
- Stinson 108
- 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
- NC409
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Polacca Airport (P10), Chandler, AZTo FFZ
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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, wheel › Jammed
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that just after touchdown the aircraft 'immediately darted to the left.' The pilot was unsuccessful in regaining directional control and the aircraft ground looped off the right side of the runway. As the aircraft entered the dirt area next to the runway pavement, the aircraft nosed over onto its back. An FAA airworthiness inspector examined the aircraft and reported that one of the three bolts which secures the left wheel halves together had backed out of its associated lock nut. The protruding bolt head contacted the brake caliper and subsequently locked the wheel. An examination of the maintenance records revealed that the wheel halves were last split about two years prior to the accident when a new tire was installed.
Probable cause
a loose wheel half bolt, due to the inadequate maintenance inspection of the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA008
- Event ID
- 20001211X13587
- Case number
- LAX94LA008
- 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 1993-10-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: af729b60e570afc59013b21cce37654103814e60203bb74e3829782d68649bff; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:32:35.689Z.