LAX06LA017 · North American T-39A
North American T-39A · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Mojave Air & Space Port (MHV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06LA017
- 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
North American T-39A
- Aircraft type
- North American T-39
- 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
- N39FS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mojave Air & Space Port (MHV), Mojave, CATo not recorded
- 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 › Aircraft 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
Prior to departure, the pilot and copilot calculated takeoff and landing distances for a wet runway. The T39A departed for a test flight, but returned after a short time due to rain showers in the area. The landing runway was still wet from a previous rain shower. The crew selected an approach flap setting and crossed the runway threshold at 125 knots. The captain reported the touchdown was just past the runway numbers, and the crew experienced normal braking action until around the 3,000-foot remaining point. At that point, the braking "seemed ineffective." The flight crew selected antiskid off and normal braking was attempted with limited effect. The captain elected not to abort the landing due to the limited remaining runway and the time needed to spool up the engines. The copilot was calling out speeds and distance remaining, and the captain remembered the airspeed was 60 knots with 2,000 feet of runway remaining. The copilot called "nose wheel steering" a couple seconds later but the steering had little effect on the aircraft. He reported that the braking "became nil" as the aircraft slowed to about 30 knots. The airplane drifted to the right side of the runway and departed the runway surface. The landing gear dug into the soft ground, with the nose gear collapsing aft and the right main gear folding inward. No mechanical failures or malfunctions were found during post accident aircraft inspections.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the landing roll. A wet runway surface was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06LA017
- Event ID
- 20051101X01768
- Case number
- LAX06LA017
- 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: 97b3265c479d0b4a306ea9c067338975c37ccef364566e377cdedf37fdbb6d9e; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:17:40.254Z.