ERA24LA128 · Cub Crafters PA18-150
Cub Crafters PA18-150 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during landing
From Massey Ranch Airpark (X50) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA128
- 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
- 0
- 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
Cub Crafters PA18-150
- Aircraft type
- Cub Crafters PA18
- 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
- N143CC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Massey Ranch Airpark (X50), Edgewater, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 21 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
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/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 systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot completed a banner towing flight and was landing when the accident occurred. When the airplane was about 20 to 30 ft above the runway, the pilot reported that he heard a loud snap and he quickly realized he lost aileron control. The pilot attempted to land using the rudder and the elevator; however, the airplane veered to the right of the runway and impacted a hangar, resulting in substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that there was a break in the left aileron direct control cable in the vicinity of the lower left fuselage direct aileron pulley. The fractured cable had a thick coating of dirt, oil, and grease-like substance. The aileron direct cable also displayed significant corrosion in multiple locations. After cleaning the cable, the cable displayed significant wear on both ends of the break. Examination of the lower left fuselage direct aileron pulley revealed that the pulley would bind during rotation, and the bushing and bolt displayed corrosion and a buildup of debris. It is likely that during aileron operation, the pulley would not rotate and that the corroded left aileron direct cable would rub against the pulley, accelerating cable wear. This resulted in the cable shedding material and becoming weaker, until it was unable to sustain the stresses of normal operation and fractured from tensile overstress. It is likely that the overstress fracture occurred during the landing, which is consistent with the right turn that the pilot experienced. According to maintenance records, the airplane had three 100-hour inspections during the 6 months before the accident. The most recent inspection was about 67.7 hours before the accident. According to the inspection checklist, the aileron control cable and pulley should have been inspected. Had the cable and pulley been properly inspected they would have been found unairworthy due to their respective conditions. Based on this information, it is likely that maintenance personnel overlooked the corrosion and wear on the aileron control cable and the binding pulley during the most recent inspections.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel’s failure to detect the worn aileron cable during the most recent inspections, which resulted in the separation of the aileron control cable and a subsequent loss of airplane control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA128
- Event ID
- 20240305193882
- Case number
- ERA24LA128
- 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: daca2c7408f4dcffc9288901214d34dace7ba6ae4b3515bb7cd8c9b101c0383c; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:33:51.309Z.