ERA09CA463 · American Legend AL3C 100
American Legend AL3C 100 · Accident: nose over/nose down during landing
From Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY) to Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA463
- 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
American Legend AL3C 100
- Aircraft type
- American Legend AL3
- 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
- N3737G
- Operator
- Lowell and Louise K. Livinghouse
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY), Warrenton, VATo Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY), Warrenton, VA
- 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
- Nose over/nose down
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot of the tailwheel airplane, during the landing rollout, he applied "too much braking pressure" in an attempt to exit the runway at the closest taxiway. The pilot also stated that he felt the tail of the airplane "rise up," but did not release the brakes soon enough to keep the airplane from nosing over. When the airplane was subsequently examined, substantial damage was noted to the rudder and right wing. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or anomalies. Winds at the accident airport about the time of the accident were reported as calm. In the block listed under the section entitled “Recommendations” in the NTSB’s 6120.1 Pilot/Operator Accident/Incident Report form, the pilot stated the following in writing: “Not reacting soon enough when the [aircraft] became unstable (tail light) was the primary cause of the accident, and poor judgment, or just allowing the landing roll to play out would have avoided the accident.”
Probable cause
The pilot's improper application of brakes during the landing rollout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA463
- Event ID
- 20090816X41113
- Case number
- ERA09CA463
- 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: 87e3ba40990b9f7717a64f6e777d9b166a79aa360263d0512e8585b7a0a3a58b; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:48:13.277Z.