CHI00LA043 · McCarty WITTMAN W-8 TAILWIND WITTMAN W-
McCarty WITTMAN W-8 TAILWIND WITTMAN W- · Accident: airframe, component or system failure
From Norcross, MN (private airstrip) to Jamestown Regional Airport (JMS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA043
- 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
- 2 · 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
McCarty WITTMAN W-8 TAILWIND WITTMAN W-
- Aircraft type
- Mccarty WITTMAN W-8 TAILWIND
- 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
- N654
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norcross, MN (private airstrip)To Jamestown Regional Airport (JMS), ND
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Owner/builder › Acft/equip, inadequate airframe
- Wing, spar › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident airplane was destroyed during an in-flight separation of the right wing and subsequent in-flight collision with terrain. The airplane was constructed by the owner and was certified as an experimental/amateur-built airplane by the Federal Aviation Administration. The inboard 15-inches of the right wing spar was sent to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Product Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin, for examination. According to an examination report, the accident wing spar was constructed of Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis). The report stated, 'It appears that the bolt holes that were drilled through the spars to accept the 1/4-inch bolts were not all drilled perpendicular to the spar's outer surfaces.' Examination of the second hole from the inboard end, 'suggests that this particular hole was drilled twice to make the bolt for this connection fit.' The report stated, '...the holes that are on either side of the spar are not evenly spaced. There is also considerable difference in the diameter of the middle two holes relative to the diameter of the outer two holes.'
Probable cause
the wing spar failure due to its inadequate construction by the owner/builder.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA043
- Event ID
- 20001212X20205
- Case number
- CHI00LA043
- 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: e2cdfe75c2b4481cc5151137ad28cf40c84ccaa02175c877f32702eee8be5b72; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:35:05.437Z.