FTW04LA056 · Pitts S-1S
Pitts S-1S · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Fort Worth Spinks Airport (FWS) to Rafter J Airport (3TX9)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04LA056
- 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
Pitts S-1S
- Aircraft type
- Pitts S-1
- 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
- N9AQ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Worth Spinks Airport (FWS), Burleson, TXTo Rafter J Airport (3TX9), Burleson, TX
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, wheel › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While landing at a private airstrip, the right main gear separated from the aircraft. Shortly after touchdown, the right gear strut dug into the grass for approximately 75 feet before the aircraft nosed over and came to rest inverted. Inspection of the amateur-built aircraft revealed that there was an old crack on the flange where it was welded to the axle nut. A new fracture had propagated from the ends of this crack around the lower axle shaft bolt, causing the other 3 remaining bolts to fracture and separate. Examination also revealed that the axle shaft had been cut off next to the backing plate flange and an axle shaft similar to what is used on a Cessna spring gear was bolted to the flange with four quarter-inch bolts. The FAA Inspector found the separated wheel with a piece of the flange still attached to it by one of the bolts. The flange was able to swivel around the bolt, suggesting that the bolt (and the 3 other bolts) was improperly torqued.
Probable cause
The separation of the right main gear wheel, during landing, due to the improper maintenance by unknown maintenance personnel on the right main landing gear assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04LA056
- Event ID
- 20040108X00038
- Case number
- FTW04LA056
- 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: ae71f0f1b53dbb0324f973de169b8f958648d682c1511ea1ab52db318fdb8cec; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:02:37.192Z.