SEA08CA181 · Eberle Pitts S1S
Eberle Pitts S1S · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Marana Regional Airport (AVQ) to Show Low Regional Airport (SOW)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08CA181
- 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
Eberle Pitts S1S
- Aircraft type
- Eberle PITTS S1S
- 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
- N39124
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marana Regional Airport (AVQ), Marana, AZTo Show Low Regional Airport (SOW), Show Low, AZ
- 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
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 oper/perf/capability
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 said that he was landing at the airport to refuel. During the landing, he flared the tail wheel-equipped airplane too high, the airplane bounced and began to veer to the left. The pilot aborted the landing and climbed the airplane back to pattern altitude for a second landing attempt. He flared and the airplane touched down; however, it veered to the left toward the edge of the runway. Just prior to the airplane leaving the runway surface, he added full power to go around. The airplane turned to the right, but the left wing rose and the airplane nosed down. The right and left wing tips impacted the runway as the airplane skidded down it for approximately 300 feet. The pilot had about 3 hours of flight time in the airplane make/model. He indicated that there were no mechanical malfunctions.
Probable cause
The pilot failed to maintain directional control during landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's limited experience in the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08CA181
- Event ID
- 20080908X01411
- Case number
- SEA08CA181
- 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: 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: d6bfad9f0419e5ad0538c5a1710451ab1a82338838896f54a13630b984229bbe; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:10:40.092Z.