WPR12LA252 · Staudacher Hydroplanes S300X
Staudacher Hydroplanes S300X · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Ephrata Municipal Airport (EPH) to Ephrata Municipal Airport (EPH)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA252
- 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
Staudacher Hydroplanes S300X
- Aircraft type
- Staudacher Hydroplanes S300
- 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
- N336JS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ephrata Municipal Airport (EPH), Ephrata, WATo Ephrata Municipal Airport (EPH), Ephrata, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2009)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
The pilot/owner of the experimental amateur-built aerobatic airplane was participating in an aerobatics practice and coaching event. On the morning of the event, he departed the airport, conducted aerobatics practice, and returned for a landing. During touchdown, the airplane bounced. Witness accounts of the severity of the touchdown and bounce varied. The airplane subsequently struck a runway sign off the left side of the runway during the rollout, and incurred substantial damage. After the accident, the pilot reported that the brakes had failed. In a followup statement, he reported no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the aircraft and added that a possible explanation of brake failure might have been as a result of the bounced landing. The accident was not reported to any aviation authorities until nearly a month after it occurred. Due to the late report, the airplane could not be examined to determine the integrity or functionality of the brake system or other possible reasons for the loss of control after landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate landing flare, which resulted in a bounced landing and subsequent loss of directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA252
- Event ID
- 20120609X33249
- Case number
- WPR12LA252
- 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: b19c9938f0987dd38d17e3bbcf1dc7b74d84a7e55a33f46e15aa4b04683a09f3; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:26:41.845Z.