FTW99LA159 · Luscombe 8E
Luscombe 8E · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Lafayette Regional Airport (LFT) to Acadiana Regional Airport (ARA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA159
- 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 8E
- 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
- N2680K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lafayette Regional Airport (LFT), Lafayette, LATo Acadiana Regional Airport (ARA)
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 › Ground loop/swerve, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New Iberia, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport rated pilot lost control of the tailwheel equipped airplane during takeoff. The pilot was occupying the left seat, and the owner was occupying the right seat of the dual control airplane. The airplane broke ground in a 3-point attitude. The wheels touched the runway after the nose was lowered to gain airspeed and the airplane veered abruptly to the left resulting in a ground loop. The owner reported that prior to the accident, 4 touch and go landings were executed on runway 34. Additionally, 2 stop-and-go landings were performed on runway 34, with the takeoffs being initiated from abeam the 3,500 foot marker. An eyewitness at the airport reported that the airplane appeared to have gotten airborne prematurely. At the time of the accident, the sky conditions were clear and the wind at the airport was reported from 200 degrees at 3 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent ground loop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA159
- Event ID
- 20001212X18993
- Case number
- FTW99LA159
- 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: 7d9020da82fccbb6f23f05c98593d04e88a04e2b99b6ec415ead18be3b0f0916; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:59:31.004Z.