CEN24LA330 · Esqual VM1
Esqual VM1 · Accident: loss of lift during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA330
- 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
Esqual VM1
- Aircraft type
- Esqual VM1
- 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
- N151GH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 19 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 lift
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot executed two stabilized low approaches without touching down. After touchdown following the third approach, engine power was added, and the wing flaps were retracted. Before the flaps were fully retracted and before rotation speed, the pilot rotated, and the airplane lifted off the runway. The airplane sank back onto the runway with a side load on the left main landing gear. The left axle broke, and the left wheel separated from the airplane and impacted the horizontal stabilizer. The pilot continued the takeoff, and the control tower confirmed there was no left wheel on the airplane. The second pilot landed the airplane on the runway without further incident. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left side of the fuselage near the attachment point of the left horizontal stabilizer when the wheel impacted the airplane. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations.
Probable cause
The pilot’s premature rotation during takeoff which resulted in the airplane settling back to the runway and the subsequent separation of the left wheel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA330
- Event ID
- 20240829195020
- Case number
- CEN24LA330
- 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: a5970be22856d0b3ee5aee33c2804ebf8ccf95d89d3f6c0176155fa5b5c2f3ad; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:12:53.281Z.