LAX05CA153 · Aerotek Pitts S-2A
Team BARF Aerotek Pitts S-2A · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Tracy Municipal Airport (KTCY) to Tracy Municipal Airport (KTCY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05CA153
- 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
Aerotek Pitts S-2A
- Aircraft type
- Aerotek PITTS S-2A
- 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
- N5300V
- Operator
- Team BARF
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tracy Municipal Airport (KTCY), Tracy, CATo Tracy Municipal Airport (KTCY), Tracy, CA
- 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
During landing, the pilot lost directional control, ground looped, and nosed over. The pilot stated that he departed the airport to go to the practice area. Upon returning to the airport, he used a slipping final for visibility, and to correct for a crosswind. When the wheels touched down, the airplane began to deviate left of center. The pilot corrected to the right, the left wing contacted the ground, and the airplane crossed to the right side of runway. The prop struck the runway and the airplane slowly nosed over. The pilot then turned off the fuel, master switch, and magnetos. Both occupants exited from the inverted airplane by sliding the canopy open. The closest official weather observation station was located 15 nautical miles (nm) northeast of the accident site and was reporting winds variable at 06 knots. The pilot reported that the winds at the airport were from 280 degrees at 12 knots. The pilot stated that the airplane and engine had no mechanical failures or malfunctions during the flight.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for the crosswind conditions and failure to maintain directional control, which resulted in a ground loop and nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05CA153
- Event ID
- 20050601X00704
- Case number
- LAX05CA153
- 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: ca3f66ae5eaefb6f238de01f7ccdbe717e6f6653eac5bf2b0f49bfc83ea58c68; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:02:16.565Z.