GAA19CA376 · Piper PA 12
Piper PA 12 · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during landing
From Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM) to Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA376
- 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
Piper PA 12
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-12
- 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
- N4238M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM), Yakima, WATo Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM), Yakima, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 72 years (built 1947)
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that, during the landing roll, he felt a "tailwheel shimmy." He attempted to correct with elevator to no avail. The airplane veered right, and he attempted to add left brake, but the airplane quickly ground looped to the right. The left wing struck the runway. He then taxied the airplane to the ramp with difficulty.
The pilot reported that postaccident examination revealed that the left tailwheel steering spring was missing. He added that the spring was present and operating normally during preflight and taxi before takeoff. Crash fire rescue personnel found the left steering spring on the runway while conducting an examination for runway damage. In pictures provided by the pilot, the spring appeared undamaged.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
Probable cause
The separation of the left steering spring from the tailwheel assembly during landing for reasons that could not be determined, which resulted in a ground loop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA376
- Event ID
- 20190630X91504
- Case number
- GAA19CA376
- 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: 4dbfb0095a96551080670727f0efe3877328dc520f4d0512acb36f9657c8d732; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:21:04.363Z.