GAA16CA315 · Seela Gerald L GLASAIR SH 2F FT
Seela Gerald L GLASAIR SH 2F FT · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Tri-State Airport / Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS) to State College Regional Airport (UNV)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA315
- 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
Seela Gerald L GLASAIR SH 2F FT
- Aircraft type
- Seela Gerald GLASAIR SH 2F
- 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
- N666GJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri-State Airport / Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS), Huntington, WVTo State College Regional Airport (UNV), State College, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 27 years (built 1989)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
According to the pilot, he was returning to his home airport after purchasing the accident airplane, but prior to returning home, the pilot had received a two hour checkout in the airplane. Upon arrival, the weather had deteriorated, rain made it hard to see and the wind was gusting. The pilot reported that he had to go around during the first landing due to the wind. He reported that during the second landing he undercompensated for the wind and the airplane landed hard, bounced and touched down again off the left side of the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage.
The pilot reported that during both approaches he had trouble manipulating the throttle; it appeared to stick and unstick at times making engine performance and power application erratic, resulting in an unstabilized approach, and compensation for the gusting wind difficult.
The wind at the airport at the time of the accident was reported as 310 degrees true, 18 knots, with gusts to 35 knots. The pilot landed runway 24, and reported that he should have chosen another airport with a crosswind runway.
Further, following the accident, the pilot realized that he was not familiar enough with the airplane's Vernier type throttle, as his past experience was with a lever type throttle.
An FAA inspector who examined the airplane after the accident reported that the Vernier throttle operated normally.
Probable cause
The pilot's hard landing in gusting wind conditions. Contributing to the accident were the pilot's unfamiliarity with the newly purchased airplane's throttle resulting in an unstable approach, and the pilot's ability to compensate for the wind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA315
- Event ID
- 20160613X30056
- Case number
- GAA16CA315
- 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: e117668bd1f05112b9611d593e67d89c27d957d0ae2534cd736a1940afc3f72a; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:30:00.241Z.