CHI00LA051 · Luscombe 8A
Luscombe 8A · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Private airstrip to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA051
- 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
- 1 · 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 8A
- 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
- N1363K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Private airstripTo 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
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted terrain after striking utility wires near Orleans, Nebraska. According to Sheriff's report of the accident, the first respondents to the scene found the aircraft in an inverted position. The pilot was found within the aircraft with his seat belt attached and his neck was bent down on his chest and he was against the roof of the aircraft. An on scene examination of the aircraft failed to detect any preexisting anomalies with respect to the airframe, engine or their related systems. The wreckage was located about 100 yards from downed power lines and wire was found wrapped around the aircraft fuselage. A friend of the pilot stated that the pilot would occasionally fly over his house when he was in town. He also stated that on the date of the accident, he heard an aircraft flying in the vicinity of his house. He stated that the engine sounded normal until the 'engine just stopped'. A toxicological examination report showed a glucose level of 105 mg/dl detected in the urine. The report states that postmortem levels above 100 mg/dl are considered abnormal.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain adequate clearance from the power line. The power line was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA051
- Event ID
- 20001212X20211
- Case number
- CHI00LA051
- 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: f2750adf22ed632c35b1b4640b1b38c910d4877c75cc10407732bf5e458682a9; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:33:10.134Z.