LAX99LA193 · Aerotek PITTS SPECIAL S-1S PITTS SPEC
Aerotek PITTS SPECIAL S-1S PITTS SPEC · Accident: loss of control on ground/water on approach
From Merced Regional Macready Field (MCE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA193
- 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
Aerotek PITTS SPECIAL S-1S PITTS SPEC
- Aircraft type
- Aerotek PITTS SPECIAL S-1S
- 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
- N93J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merced Regional Macready Field (MCE)To 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Rudder, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was practicing touch-and-go landings. He stated that on the last landing the aircraft landed hard and bounced. He decided to do a go-around and added power. The pilot reported that the power came up and the engine sounded normal; however, the aircraft didn't climb. The airplane then veered about 10 to 20 degrees to the left. The pilot stated that he realized something was wrong and cut the power. The wingtips and propeller impacted the ground and the aircraft came to rest upright about 150 feet northwest of the 1,000-foot runway marker. The pilot reported that he has no memory of the events following the reduction of power until another person arrived at the accident site. There were no witnesses to the accident; however, another pilot heard the crash and helped the pilot egress from the aircraft. The winds were reported to be variable at 4 knots at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper/inadequate use of the rudders during the attempted recovery from a bounced landing and his subsequent failure to maintain directional control of the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA193
- Event ID
- 20001212X18822
- Case number
- LAX99LA193
- 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: e8a0fd85f69180f1f6b7147bd1f84f7d2bf69c0273492167496d9246784b4559; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:03:21.657Z.