GAA15CA279 · Brunzlick Larry R SEAWIND 3000 EXPERIM
Brunzlick Larry R SEAWIND 3000 EXPERIM · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Taylor County Airport (MDZ) to Pelican Lake, WI
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15CA279
- 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
Brunzlick Larry R SEAWIND 3000 EXPERIM
- Aircraft type
- Brunzlick Larry SEAWIND 3000
- 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
- N896CB
- Operator
- Brunzlick Larry R.
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Taylor County Airport (MDZ), Medford, WITo Pelican Lake, WI
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2012)
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was practicing landings on a lake in his experimental amateur-built amphibious airplane. During the accident landing, he reported that the airplane "skipped slightly about 2 feet off the water, I held attitude and let it come down again but I accidentally let the left wing tip sponson settle onto the water while still going at about 55 knots." The airplane started to turn to the left, the sponson dug in more, and he reported that he did not correct the situation quickly enough. The airplane turned 180 degrees before coming to rest. Once the airplane was towed to shore, substantial damage was noticed to both wing sponsons and the rudder.
The pilot reported there were no pre-impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
Abnormal runway contact which precipitated a loss of directional control and impact with water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15CA279
- Event ID
- 20150929X33331
- Case number
- GAA15CA279
- 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: 11e14a0360c2bb34e187f24cd8458e5a082514920cb11707d63676bc00fbdb9e; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:50:10.859Z.