WPR11LA096 · Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR
Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From French Valley Airport (F70) to Warner Springs Gliderport Airport (CL35)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA096
- 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
- 1 · 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
Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR
- Aircraft type
- Ryan Aeronautical ST3
- 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
- N57027
- Operator
- Richard Hawkins
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From French Valley Airport (F70), Temecula, CATo Warner Springs Gliderport Airport (CL35), Warner Springs, CA
- 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
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Pole
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger were conducting a local flight when it became dark and they decided to divert to a nearby airport. As they approached the unlit airport, the left wing impacted the airport wind sock pole, located to the left of the approach end of the runway. Following the impact, the airplane collided with the ground. The accident occurred 2 minutes after the end of civil twilight.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the wind sock pole during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA096
- Event ID
- 20110111X91058
- Case number
- WPR11LA096
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2011-01-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e7562f03bd309d63cb46cc41ec97f911d382331476bb6c346569df5c4dcaca6a; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:12:36.740Z.