WPR14CA365 · Ealand Charles LIONHEART
Ealand Charles LIONHEART · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP) to Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14CA365
- 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
Ealand Charles LIONHEART
- Aircraft type
- Ealand Charles LIONHEART
- 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
- N15TE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP), San Luis Obispo, CATo Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The owner/builder of the experimental amateur-built, tailwheel-equipped biplane was seated in the front left seat, with another pilot seated in the right seat, and a passenger in the rear seat. The intent of the flight was to prepare both pilots for a flight review, with both trading off flight duties as necessary. They planned to initially perform touch-and-go landings at their home base airport, with the pilot in the right seat acting as pilot-in-command. The first takeoff and landing was uneventful, but the airport was busy, so they diverted to the accident airport to practice further. The landing approach was normal, with the airplane touching down slightly to the right of centerline and then bouncing. The pilot made corrective control inputs, but the airplane did not fully respond, bouncing again on the runway. He applied forward elevator pressure and the airplane landed a third time, this time remaining on the ground. The airplane began to drift to the right, but would not respond to the pilot's rudder inputs. The owner/builder then applied left rudder, but the airplane continued to drift towards a runway sign. As they passed to the right of the sign the airplane pitched down violently, and nosed over.
The airplane sustained substantial damage during the accident sequence to the left upper wing and the vertical stabilizer. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures which would have precluded normal operation. The owner stated that this was the first flight since he had completed the airplane's conditional inspection, and no flight control malfunctions were discovered at that time. He subsequently stated that he did not find any mechanical malfunctions or failures during a post-accident examination. He further surmised that the design of the braking system was such that simultaneous application of the left and right side brake pedals by both pilots may have resulted in excessive brake pressure, and this may have been the reason the airplane nosed over so unexpectedly.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate landing flare and subsequent loss of directional control during the landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14CA365
- Event ID
- 20140906X42415
- Case number
- WPR14CA365
- 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: f5fed39472954500f4f7fa6c5b10ae64ef9d305772da7b46c060b46637718318; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:43:39.493Z.