WPR15FA258 · Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8A UNDESIGNAT
Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8A UNDESIGNAT · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Hobby Field (77S) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15FA258
- 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
- 2 · 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
Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8A UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Silvaire 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
- N4948E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hobby Field (77S), Creswell, ORTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1960)
- 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
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot and pilot-rated passenger were departing in the tailwheel-equipped airplane. The flight was the first flight following the airplane's most recent annual inspection. One witness heard a radio transmission over the airport's common traffic advisory frequency that the airplane was experiencing a fire and returning to the airport. Another witness stated that his attention was drawn to the airplane when he heard a "pop," which was followed by a loss of power. All witness accounts were consistent with the airplane entering a steep left bank between 200 and 250 ft above ground level. As the airplane turned, the nose dropped, and the airplane descended to the ground. None of the witnesses observed any smoke or fire coming from the airplane before impact. The airplane was consumed by a postcrash fire. Despite the pilot's report of a fire, there were no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies found with the airplane or engine, and the investigation was unable to determine the source of the in-flight fire, if any.
The terrain in front of the airplane as it departed the airport was mainly open, flat farm fields; such an area would be favorable for a straight-ahead, forced landing. Although the pilot perceived some anomaly during takeoff that prompted him to initiate a forced landing, the airplane did not have sufficient altitude to complete the 180-degree turn back to the runway. The pilot failed to maintain sufficient airspeed, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle-of-attack and subsequently entering an aerodynamic stall and spin during the attempted turn.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to return to the runway shortly after takeoff, and his failure to maintain adequate airspeed during the turn, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle-of-attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall and spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15FA258
- Event ID
- 20150907X41113
- Case number
- WPR15FA258
- 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: 7f951e68e2179a60e5f4100059389b75daf48cb826c5ac0fcd0e319bd73e3284; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:30:12.289Z.