CHI04CA153 · Luscombe 8E
Luscombe 8E · Accident: nose over during takeoff
From Joliet Regional Airport (JOT) to Joliet Regional Airport (JOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04CA153
- 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
Luscombe 8E
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe 8
- 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
- N1970K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Joliet Regional Airport (JOT), Joliet, ILTo Joliet Regional Airport (JOT)
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Nose over
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was substantially damaged when it nosed over during takeoff roll. The pilot reported that as he attempted to takeoff the aircraft encountered standing water on the turf runway and nosed over. He noted that he did not see the water on the runway prior to initiating the takeoff roll. The airport manager reported that the runway was saturated due to heavy rains the night prior to the accident. In addition to runway 4-22, the airport was served by runway 12-30 (2,937 feet by 100 feet, asphalt). Winds recorded at the airport at 1505 hours were from 340 degrees at 5 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for takeoff and the subsequent failure to maintain aircraft control during the encounter with the standing water. Contributing factors were the standing water and the soft runway condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04CA153
- Event ID
- 20040709X00940
- Case number
- CHI04CA153
- 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: 6e94db598b2283fdde10e09eecb1575715123fd23f0dfd4dad58f1a6a8842a2d; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:13:20.681Z.