GAA17CA021 · Luscombe 8 B
Luscombe 8 B · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Huntingburg Airport (HNB) to Huntingburg Airport (HNB)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA021
- 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
Luscombe 8 B
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N39083
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Huntingburg Airport (HNB), Huntingburg, INTo Huntingburg Airport (HNB), Huntingburg, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 75 years (built 1941)
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot in the tailwheel-equipped airplane, after a 1-hour-long local flight, he returned to the departure airport and noticed that he would be landing with a gusting, direct left crosswind. He reported that he made one low pass about 20 ft above the ground and that he "felt the airplane was steady." He accomplished a go-around and initiated an approach. He recalled that he made a three-point landing and touched down about 50 mph on the runway centerline. When the wheels touched down, a wind gust lifted the left wing, and he tried to compensate with aileron and throttle, but he "was too slow to regain control of the airplane." He reported that the left wing struck the ground and that the airplane exited the left side of the runway and nosed over. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the firewall.
The METAR at the airport reported that, at the time of the accident, the wind was from 180° at 11 knots, gusting to 16 knots. The airplane landed on runway 27.
According to the FAA-H-8083-3B Airplane Flying Handbook, "Crosswind After-Landing Roll," pages 8-15 and 8-16:
Retaining control on the ground is a critical part of the after-landing roll, because of the weathervaning effect of the wind on the airplane.
While the airplane is decelerating during the after-landing roll, more and more aileron is applied to keep the upwind wing from rising. Since the airplane is slowing down, there is less airflow around the ailerons and they become less effective. At the same time, the relative wind is becoming more of a crosswind and exerting a greater lifting force on the upwind wing.
When the airplane is coming to a stop, the aileron control must be held fully toward the wind.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s delayed crosswind correction during the landing roll with a gusting left crosswind, which resulted in the airplane weathervaning and nosing over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA021
- Event ID
- 20161013X23652
- Case number
- GAA17CA021
- 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: 909830c1e00e2be080d18665bcecef31e7a29682bf236846fcd3f8180f11f10e; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:23:38.470Z.