ERA11CA471 · Payne/Foster GLASAIR
Payne/Foster GLASAIR · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB) to Ocala International Airport - Jim Taylor Field (OCF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11CA471
- 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
Payne/Foster GLASAIR
- Aircraft type
- Payne/foster GLASAIR
- 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
- N250CH
- Operator
- Garner Walter C
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB), Melbourne, FLTo Ocala International Airport - Jim Taylor Field (OCF), Ocala, FL
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he landed the airplane with a crosswind, and during the rollout the airplane veered to the left, ground looped, and departed the left side of the runway. The right main landing gear became caught in a grassy area, which brought the airplane to rest and resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the tailwheel lock mechanism of the free-castering tailwheel assembly was unable to keep the tailwheel engaged in the locked position. The mechanism that locked the tailwheel assembly in place was not broken; however, the spring of that particular tailwheel assembly kit worked in compression, rather than tension, which resulted in less pressure being applied to the tailwheel lock and greater susceptibility for the tailwheel to unlock during a crosswind landing. Subsequently, when the lock mechanism was moved repetitively, it became dislodged from the notch.
Probable cause
The failure of the tailwheel locking mechanism to remain engaged while landing in a crosswind, which resulted in a loss of directional control and runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11CA471
- Event ID
- 20110824X93256
- Case number
- ERA11CA471
- 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: 09a67aa1f3c43ff8fdeeb25dfcd1b6133c225b9db8dc88ff1670f8f08eafd522; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:39:45.406Z.