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LAX05LA103 · Luscombe 8F

21 Feb 2005 · Kapolei, HI, United States

Luscombe 8F · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing

From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to Kalaeloa Airport (JRF)

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Event

NTSB case
LAX05LA103
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 8F

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
N2248B
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo Kalaeloa Airport (JRF), Kapolei, HI
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 · landing roll
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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
  • Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained

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 lost control of the tail wheel equipped airplane while landing with a right quartering tailwind. The pilot landed on runway 4R with the wind between 140 and 220 degrees from 7 to 14 knots. Upon landing the airplane veered to the right. The pilot attempted to realign the airplane with rudder, aileron, and brakes, to no avail. He applied full power to abort the landing, but the engine hesitated and the left main landing gear collapsed. The engine's carburetor was not equipped with an accelerating pump. Without one an engine can experience a hesitation during rapid throttle application. No anomalies were noted with the engine or the airframe that would have prevented their normal operation. The pilot had a tail wheel endorsement and 69 hours in the accident airplane make and model.

Probable cause

the pilot's inadequate compensation for the quartering tailwind conditions, and his failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during landing. Related factors were the tailwind and crosswind.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX05LA103
Event ID
20050404X00407
Case number
LAX05LA103
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: 645489fd7e25474e0f173f13942aa21be11b973ddc1dded0708b43f29ebefeec; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:15:37.668Z.