CHI03LA034 · Waco UPF-7
Waco UPF-7 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water on approach
From Owatonna Degner Regional Airport (OWA) to Owatonna Degner Regional Airport (OWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA034
- 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
Waco UPF-7
- Aircraft type
- Waco UPF-7
- 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
- N32039
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Owatonna Degner Regional Airport (OWA), Owatonna, MNTo Owatonna Degner Regional Airport (OWA)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The instructional flight resulted in substantial damage to the airplane during a go-around from a bounced landing when it veered off runway 30, impacted the runway's precision approach path indicator light unit, and nosed over in a ditch. The wind was from 360 degrees at 14 knots gusting to 18 knots. The dual student was receiving tailwheel training from a certified flight instructor (CFI), which began earlier in the day in a Champion 7ECA and transitioned to a Waco UPF-7, which was owned by the CFI. The fourth flight of the day was to serve as a transition for landing on a hard surface runway in the Waco UPF-7. The first landing on the hard surface runway was reported as successful. The second landing resulted in a bounced landing followed by a go-around. The third landing resulted in a bounced landing followed by a go-around attempt at which point there was a reported transfer of controls to the CFI. The Waco UPF-7 was described in a publication as having little visibility straight ahead. The publication suggested that CFIs have at least 20 hours in the specific model of tailwheel airplane in which they want to give instruction in. All of the flights were accomplished with the CFI occupying the front seat and the dual student in the rear seat. The CFI reported a total flight time of 17 hours as instructor in Waco UPF-7 airplanes, of which about 3 hours were accumulated on the day of the accident. The dual student had a tailwheel endorsement and accumulated total flight time 2.7 hours in the accident airplane.
Probable cause
The remedial action not performed by the certified flight instructor (CFI) during the bounced landing and directional control not maintained during the go-around by CFI. Contributing factors were the CFIs preflight planning/preparation in placing the dual student in the rear seat, the limited ability for visual detection from the rear seat, and the lack of instructional experience of the CFI in the make and model of the accident airplane. The gusts and crosswind were additional factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA034
- Event ID
- 20021211X05590
- Case number
- CHI03LA034
- 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: f17707b5b35a0956bdbe42a72edc28fc3b90212983e34ec9e17333cef561b1ed; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:09:52.475Z.