ERA24LA213 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA213
- 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
Piper J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N6872H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 78 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that after conducting maneuvers in the area for about 30 minutes, he returned to the airport to demonstrate the first landing of the flight. He reported that upon touchdown on the grass runway, the brakes “were not effective” and the airplane veered off the runway to the left into a utility trailer that was parked near the runway. The fuselage sustained substantial damage. The private pilot receiving instruction, seated in the rear seat, reported that the approach and landing appeared normal, and the flight instructor completed a 3-point landing. He recalled that the flight instructor was unable to get the airplane to stop, and he believed the brakes were not effective given they had “plenty of runway to stop.” A Federal Aviation Administration inspector examined the airplane and brake system. The left wheel was rotated, and the left brake pedal when actuated, was observed to stop the wheel movement. The right brake pedal was bound and no longer fully functional due to impact related damage. Its actuator plunger was manipulated via a screwdriver, and right wheel movement was stopped, but not with the same amount of force as compared to the functional left brake pedal. The brake system’s fluid was normal. Neither pilot reported any issues with the brakes prior to takeoff. The effectiveness of the brake system could not be determined, due to the damage sustained to the right brake pedal during the impact with the trailer.
Probable cause
The loss of directional control during the landing roll for reasons that could not be determined, due to impact damage sustained to the brake system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA213
- Event ID
- 20240509194227
- Case number
- ERA24LA213
- 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: 3170757b720a4e144fa8f3f64b25042b2b94b66af4a88d8453bdd13f213747b2; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:44:51.923Z.