SEA08LA060 · DeSousa Jabiru J400
DeSousa Jabiru J400 · Accident: landing area overshoot
From Catalina Airport (AVX) to Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08LA060
- 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
DeSousa Jabiru J400
- Aircraft type
- Desousa JABIRU J400
- 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
- N522RJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Catalina Airport (AVX), Avalon, CATo Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Landing area overshoot
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot stated that the airplane touched down beyond the midpoint of the runway, and he applied "heavy braking." He reported that the brakes failed about three-quarters of the way down the 4,973-foot runway. The airplane overran the runway, and collided with a ditch which resulted in substantial damage to the wing assembly. Examination of the single-caliper main wheel brake assemblies by the pilot revealed extensive wear to the brake pads and rotors. He reported that both pads on the right-hand brake assembly were "melted," and the associated backing plate was bent. The actuator piston and associated O-ring was displaced, and a fluid leak was noted. The brake pads were original equipment that were installed when the airplane was manufactured 160 hours prior to the accident. The most recent condition inspection was completed 5 months and 22 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain the proper touchdown point, and loss of the wheel brake system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08LA060
- Event ID
- 20080213X00179
- Case number
- SEA08LA060
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2008-01-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b0059bef46a717cb13461597c92acf2a8239bc84a457eb0828cbd7da28ea8c9c; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:21:56.860Z.