LAX89LA166 · Waco QCF
Windstar Aviation Waco QCF · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Carefree, AZ to Holbrook Municipal Airport (P14)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89LA166
- 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
Waco QCF
- Aircraft type
- Waco QCF
- 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
- N12428
- Operator
- Windstar Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Carefree, AZTo Holbrook Municipal Airport (P14), HOLLBROOK, AZ
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A LANDING, THE AIRPLANE MADE A THREE POINT TOUCHDOWN.A GUST OF WIND CAUGHT THE AIRPLANE WHICH BECAME AIRBORNE. THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO RELAND, HOWEVER, THE LANDING WAS HARD AND THE AIRPLANE BOUNCED. THE PILOT ADDED FULL POWER WHEN THE AIRPLANE BEGAN TO GROUND LOOP. UNABLE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL, THE AIRPLANE EXITED THE RUNWAY INTO A SANDY AREA. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THERE WERE NO MECHANICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH THE AIRPLANE AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE DUE TO GUSTING WIND CONDITIONS. THE PILOT DID NOT ADEQUATELY CORRECT THE SITUATION BEFORE THE AIRPLANE TRAVELED INTO SOFT TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89LA166
- Event ID
- 20001213X28129
- Case number
- LAX89LA166
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-04-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bd232c400a917712468d96fbf877bab2b208b49666b4b33d5264f4e5c6954c2c; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:41:14.227Z.