WPR20CA153 · Ayres S 2R Undesignat
Ayres S 2R Undesignat · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Marysville, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20CA153
- 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
Ayres S 2R Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Ayres S-2
- 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
- N5573X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marysville, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 45 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 in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a telephone interview, the pilot reported that, as he was landing, the airplane started to drift into nearby power lines. He initiated a go around; however, the left wing caught the power lines. The airplane impacted the ground and tumbled several times before it came to rest inverted. The fuselage was substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
In a follow-up written statement, the pilot reported that during the landing on a dirt airstrip, the right-side brake failed due to a ruptured brake line. During the aborted landing, the airplane hit a power pole and wires.
During the initial interview and report of no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane, the airplane was released to the owner and the brake system was not examined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from power lines during a go-around.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20CA153
- Event ID
- 20200523X31748
- Case number
- WPR20CA153
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2020-05-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f4d13709cf578558ddbb2793f1f775afd943b50bedb5b2a79713811594bbb648; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:40:56.220Z.