SEA01LA104 · Curtis Lionheart
Curtis Lionheart · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Bremerton National Airport (PWT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA104
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Curtis Lionheart
- Aircraft type
- Curtis LIONHEART
- 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
- N816JC
- Operator
- John C. Curtis · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bremerton National Airport (PWT), Bremerton, WATo 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 · 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight during which the accident took place was the maiden flight for the recently completed tailwheel-equipped experimental aircraft. After flying familiarization maneuvers for about 30 minutes, the pilot returned to the departure airfield, where he made two preplanned low approaches in order to establish the best indicated airspeed for his first landing. During his third approach, which was intended to terminate in a full-stop landing, the pilot was high on final. He therefore applied right rudder to slip the aircraft in order to lose altitude. Although the pilot eliminated most of the slip as he flared the aircraft for landing, as it floated down the runway, he inadvertently allowed the nose to begin rotating to the right. Then, just before the aircraft touched down, the nose of the aircraft rotated further to the right. The aircraft touched down in a significant right crab and immediately rocked up onto its left main gear. At the same time, it started increasing its rate of turn to the right. About 275 feet from where the aircraft touched down, the left main gear experienced an overload failure, followed immediately by the right. As the right main gear collapsed, it tore a portion of the right wing fuel tank wall loose, and a large volume of fuel was released into the wheel well. As the right wing settled to the asphalt surface, a massive fire broke out, which ultimately consumed the aircraft. It was later determined that the pilot had made only four landings in a tailwheel equipped aircraft in the last year, none of which were in the make and model he was flying at the time of the accident. It was further determined that the pilot attempted the landing in a tailwind of approximately five knots.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to ensure the aircraft's longitudinal axis was aligned with the runway prior to touchdown, and his failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll. Factors include landing with a tailwind, and the pilot's lack of recent experience in the particular make and model aircraft. A factor in the severity of the post-accident fire was the kit manufacturer's inadequate design, which allowed the excessive side-load failure of a main gear leg to pull a portion of the wall from a wing fuel tank.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA104
- Event ID
- 20010608X01124
- Case number
- SEA01LA104
- 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: 5435157475c3d47c6694325cbd6bcead968798992620c269f3dd9457f66950b0; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:56:17.982Z.