NYC87DNC07 · McCulloch MONERAI "S"
McCulloch MONERAI "S" · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87DNC07
- 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
McCulloch MONERAI "S"
- Aircraft type
- Mcculloch MONERAI
- Category
- Glider
- 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
- N54MS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT), Manchester, NHTo 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Wing, spar › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Springfield, VT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE MONERAI 'S' (N54MS, A PWRD GLIDER) EXPERIENCED AN INFLT FAILURE OF THE LEFT WING SPAR & CRASHED. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT WAS BEING OPERATED IN EXCESS OF ITS MAX GROSS WT LIMIT OF 450 LBS. THE PLT OF AN UNPOWERED MONERAI SAID HE & 3 OTHERS (INCLUDING THE PLT OF N54MS) WERE FLYING IN A THERMAL WHEN HE NOTED A SUDDEN, SHARP 'UP-GUST.' HE DESCRIBED THIS 'UP-GUST' AS BEING STRONGER THAN ANY HE HAD EVER EXPERIENCED IN 5 YRS OF FLYING HIS GLIDER. HE HAD SEEN N54MS IN THE SAME THERMAL, BUT WAS NOT OBSERVING IT WHEN THE ACDNT OCCURRED. A GROUND WITNESS SAW N54MS DESCENDING OUT OF CONTROL WITH THE APPEARANCE OF BOTH WINGS POINTING UPWARD. A METALLURGICAL EXAM REVEALED THE LEFT WING SPAR HAD FAILED FROM OVERLOAD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87DNC07
- Event ID
- 20001213X31623
- Case number
- NYC87DNC07
- 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: 50876e02488fa7296efbd6fd54aeaeeb4f90794c8a74f38b1944a7e04d16b0d8; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:05:13.367Z.