ERA09CA336 · Taylorcraft BC12-D
Taylorcraft BC12-D · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during landing
From Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY) to Somerset Airport (SMQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA336
- 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
Taylorcraft BC12-D
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N43766
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY), Warrenton, VATo Somerset Airport (SMQ), Somerville, NJ
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after landing on Runway 12, the airplane began to veer to the right. His attempts to maintain directional control were unsuccessful and the airplane departed the right side of the runway, striking a plastic storage container and another airplane that was tied down. The impact damaged the right wing strut. The winds reported at the airport about the time of the accident were from 080 degrees at 5 knots. During a subsequent examination of the wreckage, a Federal Aviation Administration inspector found that the forward clevis fitting and attaching hardware were missing from the left hand tailwheel centering spring, which caused the airplane to be uncontrollable. The clevis fitting and attaching hardware were not recovered.
Probable cause
The loss of directional control during the landing roll due to the separation of the tailwheel centering spring for an undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA336
- Event ID
- 20090611X52616
- Case number
- ERA09CA336
- 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. 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: 0bec079ace89a1bdcf54b97baba2919e36adc69d5b7fe92d23b4c8685af4f87d; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:23:15.362Z.