WPR17LA100 · Grumman G164 A
Grumman G164 A · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Madera Municipal Airport (MAE) to Madera Municipal Airport (MAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA100
- 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
Grumman G164 A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G164
- 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
- N8712H
- Operator
- Streeter Racing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Madera Municipal Airport (MAE), Madera, CATo Madera Municipal Airport (MAE), Madera, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1975)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that the tailwheel-equipped airplane veered to the left during takeoff on the fourth flight of the day. He applied full right brake and rudder to correct; however, the airplane veered off the runway and the right main landing gear separated from the airframe. The pilot stated that the wind conditions at the time of the accident included a 7 to 10 mph left quartering tailwind with occasional gusts to 12 to 14 mph.
A postaccident examination of the right brake revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane incorporated a free-swivel, non-lockable tailwheel assembly; directional control on the ground was accomplished by application of differential braking until adequate airspeed was attained for the rudder to become effective. It is likely that, due to the quartering tailwind, the airplane had not yet attained an adequate airspeed for rudder effectiveness and that the pilot's braking action was insufficient to overcome the left yaw.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of directional control during takeoff with a quartering tailwind, which resulted in a runway excursion and separation of the right landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA100
- Event ID
- 20170508X30322
- Case number
- WPR17LA100
- 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, coordinates. 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: e1588d3860c05c4571f15b1f5956dd0acf11dcb9740fd346d89c83c670f6aa8f; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:14:52.599Z.