WPR24LA061 · Glasair SH2
Glasair SH2 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Safford Regional Airport (SAD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA061
- 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
Glasair SH2
- Aircraft type
- Glasair SH2
- 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
- N29TT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Safford Regional Airport (SAD), Safford, AZTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1986)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- 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
When the airplane’s tailwheel touched the ground during landing, the airplane immediately swerved and ground looped, causing substantial damage to the fuselage due to sideloads on the landing gear. The weather conditions were not a factor, and examination revealed that the tailwheel was jammed 45° relative to the direction of travel.
Further examination revealed that the tailwheel assembly locking mechanism was significantly worn and had been incorrectly constructed, so a positive lock was not possible. Under this condition, with light side loads as are often encountered during landing, the tailwheel could unlock and be pushed into an over center position. This resulted in the airplane aggressively swerving as observed.
Probable cause
Loss of directional control during landing due to an improperly constructed and maintained tailwheel locking assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA061
- Event ID
- 20231227193576
- Case number
- WPR24LA061
- 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, 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: c4317a58e42951f76492b6947cfef3e8c89ca78f95d842be3a93605e233753c3; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:23:46.622Z.