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WPR23LA128 · Jones JAY D CASSUTT M 11

12 Mar 2023 · Castroville, CA, United States

Jones JAY D CASSUTT M 11 · Accident: aircraft structural failure while maneuvering

From Marina Municipal Airport (OAR) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
WPR23LA128
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
Event fatalities
Unknown
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

Jones JAY D CASSUTT M 11

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
N55XJ
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Marina Municipal Airport (OAR), Marina, CATo not recorded
Aircraft age
About 20 years (built 2003)
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
Maneuvering · aerobatics
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
Aircraft structural failure
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 structures

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot was performing an aileron roll when the airplane suddenly entered an uncommanded high-g maneuver, and he lost control of the airplane. He was able to release his seat belt and parachute to the ground. The left wing and aileron separated from the airplane before impacting a muddy field. The mostly intact left aileron, attached torque tube, and both trailing edge ribs separated from the wing and the torque tube fractured from the bellcrank in the fuselage. The forward halves of the upper and lower flanges and the forward flange of the outboard trailing edge rib were separated cleanly from the wing consistent with an adhesive type failure at the interface between the carbon and adhesive. The aft halves of the upper and lower flanges of the outboard trailing edge rib were separated from the trailing edge skins with a cohesive type failure through the adhesive. The lower flange also had evidence of foam core material in the bond line. The available evidence suggests that the outboard trailing edge rib failed along the bond lines between the rib, rear spar, and trailing edge skins, which resulted in a loss of control when the left aileron separated from the wing and the left wing separated from the airplane.

Probable cause

A failure of the outboard trailing edge rib in the left wing, which resulted in a separation of the left aileron and a loss of control.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR23LA128
Event ID
20230313106887
Case number
WPR23LA128
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, cause areas. 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: 2d76e6722408f95b8e5cc8efc66e7f242f1731866c3ecdd88398bca5ab7aec3f; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:25:24.776Z.