LAX90DUG03 · Groves COUGAR
Groves COUGAR · Accident: nose over during landing
From L67 · Rialto, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90DUG03
- 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
Groves COUGAR
- Aircraft type
- Groves COUGAR
- 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
- N4758
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L67 · Rialto, 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Nose over
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, not performed
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PILOT OF AN EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT LANDED DOWNWIND ON RUNWAY 26 AND IT NOSED OVER. THE WINDS AT THE TIME WERE FROM 090 DEGREES AT 14 GUSTING TO 17 KNOTS. THE PILOT REPORTED NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS WITH THE AIRPLANE PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT STATED HE WAS NOT ABLE TO RECEIVE AIRPORT ADVISORIES NOR SEE THE WIND DIRECTION INDICATORS AND ELECTED TO LAND ON THE UPHILL RUNWAY. THE RUNWAY WAS 5,200 FEET LONG.
Probable cause
PILOT'S IMPROPER WIND EVALUATION AND IMPROPER AIRCRAFT HANDLING AFTER LANDING. THE TAILWIND AND WIND GUSTS WERE FACTORS RELATING TO THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90DUG03
- Event ID
- 20001212X22575
- Case number
- LAX90DUG03
- 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: 7493a748df00e3a6bff8037f4dca4df5aba26156f0d72824ecd577dcaa3cf6bd; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:45:54.075Z.