SEA03LA180 · Lancair LC41
Lancair LC41 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure
From S07 · Bend, OR to S07 · Bend, OR
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA180
- 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
Lancair LC41
- Aircraft type
- Lancair LC41
- 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
- N166PD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S07 · Bend, ORTo S07 · Bend, OR
- 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
- Other
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, incorrect
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Incorrect
- Manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate design
- Miscellaneous eqpt/furnishings, parachute/drag chute › Malfunction
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, who had been conducting a series of spin entry and recovery tests, had intentionally entered a spin while applying left rudder and left aft stick. Because his flight control inputs did not result in recovery from the spin after three and one-half turns, he deployed the spin recovery/stabilization drogue parachute. Once the aircraft was established in an attitude from which the pilot could maintain controlled flight once the parachute was released, he pulled the drogue chute manual jettison handle. At that point, because the chute did not release, the pilot activated the electrical backup jettison system. When that action did not release the parachute, the pilot tried the electrical system a second time, and finding that this action did not release the chute, he tried the manual release a second time. At that point, because the parachute still remained attached, the pilot applied engine power in an attempt to establish controlled flight with the parachute in trail. Once he determined that the aircraft could not be satisfactorily flown in that configuration, he exited the aircraft and deployed his emergency parachute. During the investigation it was determined that the drogue chute either became entangled in the drogue chute tail boom after release from the tow hook mechanism, or it did not release from the tow hook mechanism when the pilot tried to activate it, but instead was released by the forces created by the impact with the terrain. It was also determined that the chute release system was not flight-load tested on this specific aircraft prior to the in-flight activation. Furthermore it was determined that the backup electrically activated cable guillotine system was wired incorrectly, and could not have been activated by the pilot in flight.
Probable cause
The inadequate design of the drogue chute mechanical jettison system, which resulted in its failure to separate from the aircraft during in-flight spin recovery tests, and the incorrectly wired drogue chute cable cutter activation unit, which resulted in the inability of the pilot to activate the backup chute separation system after any failure of the primary system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA180
- Event ID
- 20030903X01449
- Case number
- SEA03LA180
- 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: 7d95586f1e093baaf91cf97a43233b1e39dfd1c402c528692ab7e188b2bab8dc; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:38:36.823Z.