WPR09CA481 · S.C. Aerostar S.A. YAK-52W
John Hutton S.C. Aerostar S.A. YAK-52W · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to Panda Airport (HI49)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA481
- 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
S.C. Aerostar S.A. YAK-52W
- Aircraft type
- S C Aerostar YAK-52
- 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
- N691T
- Operator
- John Hutton
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo Panda Airport (HI49), Kaunakakai, HI
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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 reported that he was returning to his home airport in dark night conditions. He performed a low approach, about 50 feet above the runway, to clear it of any wildlife that may have been present. After turning into the crosswind leg, he turned off the landing lights due to a high ambient glare that left him with a partial loss of night vision for a few seconds. He also stated that he neglected to set the elevator trim to maximum up, and that he had maintained a full cruise power setting. He reported that the altimeter was dark and not readable after he turned into the downwind leg of the approach. Shortly afterward the airplane unexpectedly contacted the ground, which resulted in structural damage to both wings and the fuselage. The airplane came to rest in an upright position in a nose-down attitude. The downwind portion of the traffic pattern is on a gradual slope that is about 200 feet higher than the runway. The pilot reported that he had made numerous night landings to his home airport. On the accident landing he did not cross-check the altimeter during the approach and had not properly configured the airplane for landing. He added that if he would have followed his normal regimen, and configured the airplane properly, the airplane would have been about 1,000 feet higher than it was when it impacted the terrain. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical problems with the airframe or engine at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from terrain while in the airport traffic pattern in dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA481
- Event ID
- 20100407X13833
- Case number
- WPR09CA481
- 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: 929c0565eb805ea63d1ec8764d4c50723612b9052ba934d9770e864cc15cbce1; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:50:02.915Z.