WPR15LA024 · Extra Flugzeugproduktions-UND EA 300/L
Extra Flugzeugproduktions-UND EA 300/L · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From Henderson Executive Airport (HND) to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA024
- 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
Extra Flugzeugproduktions-UND EA 300/L
- Aircraft type
- Extra Flugzeugproduktions Und EA-300
- 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
- N763DT
- Operator
- Sky Combat Ace
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Henderson Executive Airport (HND), Henderson, NVTo Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerobatics
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- 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
The flight instructor was conducting an aerobatic demonstration flight for a pilot-rated passenger, during which the flight instructor was demonstrating the airplane's characteristics to the pilot. The flight instructor reported that he performed a spin maneuver, and during the recovery, he felt the tension in the rudder pedal become completely slack. The pedal moved completely forward, and he realized that the rudder cable must have separated. During the subsequent emergency landing at a nearby airport, the flight instructor could not maintain directional control, and the airplane slid off the right side of the runway.
A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the rudder cable had separated. The rudder cable showed signatures indicative of a failure due to tension overstress. Several of the wire strands on the cable were damaged by rubbing wear and were either completely worn through or nearly worn through, compromising the cross-section of the cable. The Federal Aviation Administration had issued a special airworthiness information bulletin (SAIB) for this airplane about 3 years before the accident to address similar rudder cable failures. The SAIB recommended that, to mitigate risk, cable inspections should be completed and a protective hose should be installed. A review of the maintenance logbooks found no record indicating that the SAIB had been implemented, and no protective hose was found. The SAIB was not mandatory, and the operator, which operated flights for paying passengers, including aerobatics and air combat demonstrations, chose not to the comply with it. If the operator had chosen to comply with the SAIB, the rudder cable may not have failed.
Probable cause
The failure of the rudder cable due to tension overstress as a result of the cable’s strength being compromised by wear damage, which resulted in the flight instructor’s inability to maintain directional control during the landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA024
- Event ID
- 20141028X20224
- Case number
- WPR15LA024
- 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: 15fdaa8e4d7eb7df9542279a87e00d79a3ad06ce7765c87ce9b9ceda1c01b0f4; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:53:29.731Z.