LAX89DVD02 · WAR Replicas P-51
WAR Replicas P-51 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From 036 · Tracy, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89DVD02
- 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
WAR Replicas P-51
- Aircraft type
- War Replicas P-51
- 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
- N51K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 036 · Tracy, 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 turn to base
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Flight control, aileron attachment › Improper
- Flight control, aileron › Flutter
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, modification, not corrected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A LOCAL TEST FLIGHT, THE PILOT LOST CONTROL OF THE HALF-SCALE P-51 AIRPLANE WHILE TURNING FROM DOWNWIND TO BASE. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH THE TERRAIN SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THAT THE AILERON CONTROL BELLCRANK WAS NOT INSTALLED IN ACCORDANCE WITH RECORDS HELD BY THE PILOT/MANUFACTURER. WITNESSES REPORTED SEEING BOTH AILERONS AND THE WINGS FLUTTERING BEFORE THE CRASH. EVIDENCE INDICATED AILERON OVERTRAVEL. THE COCKPIT CONTROL STICK WAS NOT EQUIPPED WITH CONTROL TRAVEL STOPS.
Probable cause
THE IMPROPER INSTALLATION OF THE AILERON CONTROLS OF THIS HOMEBUILT ACFT BY THE PILOT/MANUFACTURER WHICH LED TO THE INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S INEXPERIENCE IN THE AIRPLANE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89DVD02
- Event ID
- 20001213X27737
- Case number
- LAX89DVD02
- 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: 4f81af3c727cec1938dccfe29db5cf01050fb163a47432d5b0237bcaed2e4092; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:24:51.849Z.