CEN18LA102 · Scheineman-VAN Buren T 18 UNDESIGNAT
Scheineman-VAN Buren T 18 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Vance Brand Airport (LMO) to Vance Brand Airport (LMO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA102
- 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
Scheineman-VAN Buren T 18 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Scheineman Van Buren T-18
- 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
- N89ER
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vance Brand Airport (LMO), Longmont, COTo Vance Brand Airport (LMO), Longmont, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1978)
- 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The tailwheel-qualified private pilot was conducting his first flight in the T-18 airplane with a flight instructor. After several local flight maneuvers and about seven uneventful landings, he planned to execute a full-stop landing. During the landing roll, the airplane turned right as it decelerated. The pilot attempted to correct the turn with left rudder control and braking, but the airplane groundlooped, departed the runway surface, and nosed over, which resulted in damage to the left wing and vertical stabilizer. The pilot was unsure if he had applied any braking pressure during the landing before having directional control issues. The flight instructor did not recall the accident sequence due to his injuries. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures, except for a fractured rudder cable. Examination of the cable revealed an overstress separation, which was consistent with accident damage. Thus, the pilot likely failed to maintain directional control during the landing roll and the flight instructor did not take timely remedial action to maintain runway heading.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll and the flight instructor’s delayed remedial action, which resulted in a groundloop and nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA102
- Event ID
- 20180216X65946
- Case number
- CEN18LA102
- 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: 638c46ec93def536d982b9dcbf60763ea179f7ecae6de6cb938e908a6d1a024a; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:29:13.825Z.