NYC02IA118 · Learjet 35A
Aircraft Charter Group Learjet 35A · Incident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC) to Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC02IA118
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Learjet 35A
- Aircraft type
- Learjet 35
- 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
- N989AL
- Operator
- Aircraft Charter Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC), Oxford, CTTo Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC), Oxford, CT
- 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 · aborted
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was receiving his initial orientation flight in a Lear 35A, after completion of ground school. Following airwork, the flight proceeded to an airport for touch and go practice. After touchdown, the commercial pilot initiated reverse thrust, and when the flight instructor called for the "go", the commercial pilot stowed the thrust reversers, and advanced the power levers for takeoff thrust. With application of power, the airplane became uncontrollable and departed the left side of the runway, and came to rest in a grassy area. According to the flight instructor, the pneumatic thrust reversers, which were installed on the airplane would not always deploy or stow at the same time, even though the process had been initiated on both reversers at the same time. According to the FAA, the flight manual supplement for the thrust reversers was not in the airplane flight manual. The supplement contained a limitation to not use reverse thrust in a touch and go landing. It also contained a caution to not advance the thrust levers until the IDLE and DEPLOY lights were extinguished. Both pilots reported they were looking outside and did not observe the thrust reverser lights. In addition, the commercial pilot reported he was not aware of the restriction on the use of reverse thrust. The flight instructor reported that he was aware of the restriction; however, he was not aware that the commercial pilot had initiated reverse thrust, and was not expecting it.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the commercial pilot during a touch and go landing, including his failure to properly brief the commercial to not use reverse thrust during a touch and go landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC02IA118
- Event ID
- 20020702X01026
- Case number
- NYC02IA118
- 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, coordinates. 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: 6ff89b982ffd4b1ab84e6715b42af9767811d08294c77dcf32077c6a455ad8fe; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:49:46.726Z.