GAA17CA301 · Zwicker Murray R GLASTAR
Zwicker Murray R GLASTAR · Accident: landing gear collapse
From Buchanan Field (CCR) to Buchanan Field (CCR)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA301
- 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
Zwicker Murray R GLASTAR
- Aircraft type
- Zwicker Murray GLASTAR
- 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
- N89SR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CATo Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 1997)
- 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
- Landing gear collapse
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the amphibious float-equipped airplane reported that, after the owner had completed multiple touch-and-go water landings, he chose to take the flight controls and perform a few water landings himself. He added that his first touch-and-go water landing "went very well." However, during the second touch-and-go water landing, the touchdown was smooth, but as he added power to "begin the climb away," the airplane veered right and nosed over into the water. He added that the right float may have struck a submerged object during the landing.
The right wing lift strut sustained substantial damage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
According to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aviation Safety Inspector who inspected the accident airplane postaccident, the forward first third section of the right float was bent upward and had "scratching and scoring" marks on the bottom side of the float. He added that he did not observe any rust or corrosion on either float.
A review of the FAA airman certification database revealed that neither pilot held an airplane single-engine sea rating.
Probable cause
The amphibious float-equipped airplane's encounter with a submerged object during a water landing, which resulted in a nose-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA301
- Event ID
- 20170501X13028
- Case number
- GAA17CA301
- 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: d97c137b9aa17bc5dd54d917caafa79be412e5ca8432a063b8af8ff15b33bdf8; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:12:47.665Z.