ERA15LA228 · Luscombe 8A
Luscombe 8A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Harford County Airport (0W3) to Harford County Airport (0W3)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA228
- 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
Luscombe 8A
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe 8
- 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
- N2009B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harford County Airport (0W3), Churchville, MDTo Harford County Airport (0W3), Churchville, MD
- Aircraft age
- About 67 years (built 1948)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the commercial pilot, while the airplane was descending on the final leg of the traffic pattern after the personal flight, he reduced the fuel mixture, and the engine then lost total power. The pilot was unable to regain engine power, and the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall and subsequently impacted the ground, which resulted in substantial damage to the wings, vertical stabilizer, and fuselage.
A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no preaccident mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The Engine Operator's Manual stated that the mixture must be in the "full rich" position during the descent. It is likely that the pilot's reduction of the fuel mixture during the descent resulted in the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper reduction of the fuel mixture while the airplane was descending on the final leg of the traffic pattern, which resulted in a total loss of engine power and subsequent aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA228
- Event ID
- 20150531X02741
- Case number
- ERA15LA228
- 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: 4d8aea63753b094449a606c6ddb28843e3294674451174a5143c03a89fd96bef; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:22:16.177Z.