LAX00LA184 · McCoy GLASAIR III GLASAIR II
McCoy GLASAIR III GLASAIR II · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Whiteman Airport (WHP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA184
- 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
McCoy GLASAIR III GLASAIR II
- Aircraft type
- Mccoy GLASAIR
- 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
- N1ML
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Whiteman Airport (WHP), WHITEMAN, CATo 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 pattern final
- 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
- Utility pole
- 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 › Proper glidepath, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Burbank, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was to practice takeoff's and landings at a nearby airport. According to the pilot, while on final approach, the airplane experienced a downdraft and lost about 75 feet in altitude. The pilot initiated a go-around, but was unable to arrest the descent. The airplane's right main landing gear struck a telephone pole and was sheared off. The pilot requested to make an emergency landing at the accident airport due to the availability of ARFF equipment. After landing, the remaining landing gear collapsed, and the airplane veered off the runway and struck a taxiway sign with the right wing. Review of the aviation surface observations for the hour before and after the accident revealed winds out of the west at 7 knots. No unusual meteorological conditions were reported.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain a proper glidepath, which resulted in a collision with a power pole and damage to the landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA184
- Event ID
- 20001212X21034
- Case number
- LAX00LA184
- 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: bed8f3adcb9f1523b8dbd1df3d5cebe9b3874c6823150f33c93f35118c920da7; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:55:06.645Z.