LAX91LA392 · North American AT-6G
North American AT-6G · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid while maneuvering
From 4SD · Reno, NV to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA392
- 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
North American AT-6G
- Aircraft type
- North American AT-6
- 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
- N29931
- Operator
- James A. Mott · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4SD · Reno, NVTo 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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 › Clearance, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS FLYING THE RENO AIR RACE COURSE DURING TRIALS. THE AIRCRAFT WAS ON THE RACE COURSE AND SEEMED TO ENTER A TURN AT ONE OF THE PYLONS AT A LOWER THAN NORMAL ALTITUDE. THE LEFT WING CONTACTED THE GROUND. THE PILOT WAS ABLE TO RECOVER THE AIRCRAFT TO LEVEL FLIGHT AND MADE A LEFT BASE ENTRY TO RUNWAY 18. AS THE AIRCRAFT TURNED FROM BASE TO FINAL, IT CONTINUED TO BANK TO THE LEFT UNTIL THE LEFT WING CONTRACTED THE GROUND AND THE AIRCRAFT CART WHEELED. ABOUT THREE FEET OF THE LEFT AILERON WAS FOUND AT THE PYLON WHERE THE FIRST WING CONTACT OCCURRED. THE PILOT SAID THAT THE AILERON CONTROLS WERE JAMMED AND HE COULD ONLY CONTROL THE AIRCRAFT IN ROLL BY USE OF THE RUDDER AND POWER CHANGES. AS THE AIRCRAFT TURNED FINAL FOR THE RUNWAY, THE PILOT SAID HE REDUCED POWER HOWEVER, HE COULD NOT GET THE AIRCRAFT TO RESPOND FAST ENOUGH AND THE LEFT WING TIP CONTACTED THE GROUND.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN AN ADEQUATE CLEARANCE BETWEEN THE AIRCRAFT AND THE GROUND WHILE MANEUVERING AROUND A PYLON, WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF CONTROL DURING LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA392
- Event ID
- 20001212X18122
- Case number
- LAX91LA392
- 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 1991-09-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 602bb3bd53381ffc2fa916287c4b75919cab5f8518deae570e7a44395c37ce64; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:26:44.045Z.