WPR24LA069 · Taylorcraft BC12-D
Taylorcraft BC12-D · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From Stillwater Airport (1MT4) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA069
- 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
Taylorcraft BC12-D
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N43415
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stillwater Airport (1MT4), Whitefish, MTTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 77 years (built 1946)
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Organizational issues › Management
- Organizational issues › Support/oversight/monitoring
- Personnel issues › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that the airport had recently been closed but the applicable Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) had expired, and he flew to the airport. Upon arrival, he overflew the field to check the wind direction and then entered a downwind for the runway. The approach was uneventful until just before touchdown when the airplane struck a steel structure, which was a runway closed sign, that had been placed near the runway threshold. The pilot further reported that he did not see the sign before impact due to visibility limitations of the tailwheel-equipped airplane on approach. The airplane subsequently nosed over and came to rest inverted, resulting in substantial damage to the vertical stabilizer and rudder. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot thought that the NOTAM of the airport closure had expired. It was determined that the airport was meant to be temporarily closed, but the applicable NOTAM was inadvertently allowed to expire and was not renewed. Appropriate mitigations have since been incorporated to prevent recurrence.
Probable cause
The failure of the airport authorities to renew the airport closure NOTAM for the airport. Contributing to the accident, was the pilot’s inability to see the runway closure sign.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA069
- Event ID
- 20240109193635
- Case number
- WPR24LA069
- 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: 14cb66c080676ca9aef2854a828184a49eb774852225e6a263957d4fa4265040; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:25:38.038Z.