CEN13LA376 · Avery Jack H GLASTAR GS-1
Avery Jack H GLASTAR GS-1 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Grand Rapids Itasca Co-Gordon Newstrom field (GPZ) to Grand Rapids, MN
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA376
- 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
Avery Jack H GLASTAR GS-1
- Aircraft type
- Avery Jack GLASTAR GS-1
- 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
- N103A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Rapids Itasca Co-Gordon Newstrom field (GPZ), Grand Rapids, MNTo Grand Rapids, MN
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to takeoff from the airport pond, the pilot performed a few high-speed taxi and on-the-step maneuvers with no anomalies noted. After the flight and during the short flight to the intended landing area, the pilot heard two to three aural "autopilot disconnect" voice messages. Because the pilot believed he did not engage the autopilot during the flight, he was uncertain why he was hearing the autopilot disconnect messages and was not overly concerned. During the landing, after the floats contacted the water, the airplane's right wing immediately lifted up, and the left wing tip contacted the water. Subsequently, the airplane nosed over. The pilot reported the weather at the time of the accident as ideal for flying; sky clear and a steady 5-knot wind. Data extracted from the avionics units showed 9 autopilot engagements during the flight; however, the data did not show what caused the inadvertent engagements. It is likely the autopilot engaged during the attempted landing and caused the loss of directional control, but the reason for the autopilot engagement was not determined due to damage to the avionics system caused by water exposure and recovery damage.
Probable cause
The loss of directional control during landing because the autopilot engaged for undetermined reasons because water and recovery damage precluded detailed examination of system components.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA376
- Event ID
- 20130627X55924
- Case number
- CEN13LA376
- 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: 6ba3595d07de99fe7401c6019156725502e1ae48f067f93e6f0f7f513c2b6302; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:01:12.578Z.