WPR16CA077 · Stinson 108 3 UNDESIGNAT
Stinson 108 3 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Tracy Municipal Airport (TCY) to Livermore Municipal Airport (LVK)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16CA077
- 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
Stinson 108 3 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Stinson 108
- 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
- N862C
- Operator
- WHALEN FRANK and EPPERSON MARK
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tracy Municipal Airport (TCY), Tracy, CATo Livermore Municipal Airport (LVK), Livermore, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1947)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
**This report was modified on February 20, 2020. Please see the public docket for this accident to view the original report.**
The pilot reported that during the landing on runway 25L in the tail-wheel equipped airplane, it touched down in a three-point landing attitude on the centerline. Shortly thereafter, it started to veer to the right. The pilot applied full left rudder and brake application; however, the airplane continued to veer off the right edge of the runway into tall grass and ground looped. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
While taxiing the airplane back to the hangar, the pilot stated that he noticed that the wind was blowing from the northeast and that runway 7L was now in use. He also noticed that the left rudder/brake pedal required more travel distance than the right pedal, with reduced brake effectiveness on the left side.
The National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) postaccident examination of the brake system found no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures were revealed that would have precluded normal operation. Subsequent to the NTSB's examination, a mechanic examined the tailwheel unit and found that it was loosely mounted and that the steering springs were weak. The mechanic then disassembled the tailwheel unit and found that the mount hole was excessively large and that a dowel and compression spring were worn. The mechanic's findings were consistent with wear over time and not a sudden failure. Thus, the issues with the tailwheel assembly existed before the accident and likely contributed to the uncommanded right turn; however, with appropriate braking, the pilot should have been able to regain directional control and keep the airplane on the runway.
The airplane's last annual inspection before the accident occurred on August 20, 2015. The issues with the tailwheel assembly would have developed over a period of time that was much longer than the 6 months between the annual inspection and the accident. Thus, maintenance personnel should have detected the tailwheel assembly issues during the annual inspection.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll. Contributing to the accident was maintenance personnel's failure to detect the worn tailwheel assembly during the airplane's annual inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16CA077
- Event ID
- 20160302X11902
- Case number
- WPR16CA077
- 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: e174e6dcee1aca99b2af20f9997e4137944bd90bf2eac3055c123d3d33ca3ce0; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:11:49.569Z.