WPR15LA218 · Dafoe Gerald W TCOW SMITH CUB
Dafoe Gerald W TCOW SMITH CUB · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Cascade Airport (KU70) to Cascade Airport (KU70)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA218
- 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
Dafoe Gerald W TCOW SMITH CUB Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Dafoe Gerald TCOW SMITH CUB
- 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
- N810GL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cascade Airport (KU70), Cascade, IDTo Cascade Airport (KU70), Cascade, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 6 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot/owner of the ultralight airplane was conducting a personal flight. He stated that, after landing, he applied the brakes to slow the airplane. He did not feel any right brake resistance, and the airplane swerved left due to left brake application. He attempted to correct with rudder inputs, but the airplane ground looped to the left, which resulted in the right landing gear collapsing and damage to the right wing. The pilot stated that the he had recently been having ongoing difficulty with the airplane's right brake function.
Examination and disassembly of the right brake master cylinder revealed that the master cylinder piston O-ring had a gouge in it. The gouge likely allowed brake fluid to bypass the seal, which resulted in a loss of brake pressure and, therefore, reduced effectiveness after landing.
Probable cause
A gouge in the right brake master cylinder piston O-ring, which resulted in a loss of brake pressure and reduced effectiveness after landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to operate the airplane with an ongoing brake issue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA218
- Event ID
- 20150716X35419
- Case number
- WPR15LA218
- 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: 9e192052362a45df625d84e82b179b22396a9f49a1fec63bd94a0a27174afb93; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:32:25.514Z.