LAX08CA051 · Luscombe 8E
Luscombe 8E · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during takeoff
From Brigham City Regional Airport (BMC) to Brigham City Regional Airport (BMC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA051
- 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
- N71730
- Operator
- Stephen W. Sawyer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brigham City Regional Airport (BMC), Brigham City, UTTo Brigham City Regional Airport (BMC), Brigham City, UT
- 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
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 › Task performance
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 took off in his ski-equipped airplane. Upon accelerating through 65 mph, just as the airplane was beginning to climb, the pilot heard a noise coming from the side of the airplane. He saw that the tip of a ski was dislodged from its normal position, and was upside down. After evaluating the situation, the pilot decided to land on the same ski runway. As the airplane decelerated following touchdown, the pilot lost directional control, and the airplane swerved and nosed over. During the subsequent examination of the airplane, a bungee cable, used to secure and position one of the skis to the landing gear strut, was found too long. The ski assembly shock cords on the skis were found to be in poor condition, aged, and weak.
Probable cause
The failure of the landing gear/ski attachment assembly due to inadequate maintenance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA051
- Event ID
- 20080225X00233
- Case number
- LAX08CA051
- 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 2008-01-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 70be2fef6e27fdbebd94b4753b3b0583bc179c782c51eb6867d7448d1ce24ffc; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:23:13.649Z.